RWBY Backstories: Porcelain
by BleedItAndWeep
Summary: "The mask covered a little under half of her face, and was smooth to the touch – porcelain-esq, like a doll. As though her life's situation had suddenly metastasized all over the right side of her body." Third in the RWBY Backstories series. (No elements of Bleach in this story, despite what the cover may make you think) !No longer Cannon! within the Creeping Thorns Universe.
1. The Doll

_Recommended listening - Nightcore-d Dollhouse by Melanie Martinez_

 **RWBY Backstories:**

 _Porcelain, I: (1 of ?)_

 _The Doll_

 ** _Update: 5/30/18_**

 ** _Hey. been a while. sorry about that. just wanted to say that i'm not dead, just busy and hideously lazy. great combo :P_**

 ** _After writing a bunch of the story for Creeping Thorns, I've finally come to the decision that all of my RWBY Backstories are no longer canon within my soon-to-be mainstory. Sorry to disappoint folks, but chances are the changes made between the Backstories and the actual character backstories won't be big, but will be big enough that my decision to out and out say these aren't canon anymore is important._**

 _ **As a consolation prize, the first chapter of Creeping Thorns is coming out later this week. So, I'll see you guys then. Ciao**_

 _Greetings ladies and gentlemen of the RWBY fanfiction community!_

 _You know, I think we're more than or just about half-way done with these Backstories. We got this one (about Weiss, though some other characters you may not expect will also appear winky face) and at least 1-2 more. Probs 2._

 _I'm hoping to induce feels in this one, at least a little. I like to think of this story as definitively tragic, but I guess it's up to me to make you feel something. You monster. (if you read that in GlaDos' voice you receive a cake. Please wait until the end of the chapter to receive the cake. Thank you for your cooperation)_

* * *

" _The mask covered a little under half of her face, and was smooth to the touch – porcelain-esq, like a doll. As though her life's situation had suddenly metastasized all over the right side of her body."_

Snow.

No matter the day, no matter the year, no matter the season – in this frozen hellhole, it snowed from long before you were born and it snowed long after you died.

The red from where She had laid was gone, erased by the fresh snow. Not erased from her _mind_ , mind you, for Winter laid as blue and red and white as she ever did, reaching for her and whispering " _why did you do this to me, why, why, why…_ "

Always with the 'why'.

She was fairly confident, amongst everything going on, that at the very least 'this' was a mere illusion. It was strange to think back on her life, of all the dozens of escapist fantasies played out in her mind to escape from the frosted hell, to consider the ability to differentiate between reality and fiction a privilege. To know when the nightmare ended and reality began.

Now, she lacked that privilege.

" _Why_ ," Winter's frostbitten corpse rasped, clawing at Weiss' leg. " _Why did you let me die? So that I may spare a monster like you?_ "

Weiss closed her eyes, letting the soft sound of snowfall clear her mind, though she was unable to feel it on the right side of her body. _Breathe. Breathe. You came out here for a reason._

 _You came here to confront her._

"…You sacrificed yourself," Weiss spoke aloud, staring down the imitation of her sister. It had no eyes. "To save me. To buy me time-"

" _Oh, and what a useless sacrifice it was._ " The abomination snarled, dragging long nails through the snow. Weiss reminded herself that it wasn't real, even though the marks in the snow looked awfully detailed. " _I gave my life to save the family failure, and you repaid me by overthrowing father. You aren't even old enough to date yet – how are you going to run the Schnee Dust Corporation, all its affiliates - our_ Empire _without driving it into the ground?"_

Weiss admittedly quietly to herself that was one particular mystery she hadn't thought through, but chided herself for the distraction and pushed on.

"That is irrelevant." Weiss bit out. "I came here to tell you you're wrong. I-"

" _Do you see their faces when you dream?_ " Winter asked, voice ethereal like the rustling wind. Weiss stiffened. " _All those that you had slaughtered, that you slaughtered_ yourself _-_ "

"That is _enough_!" She screamed, stabbing Myrtenaster's – _dripping, bloodied –_ blade through the aberration's skull. The creature laughed.

" _You are a fool. You attempt to overcome your unforgiveable acts like a spoiled little girl – by willing them away._ " It leaned in, dragging Myrtenaster deeper into its skull. Grinning wide enough to stretch its flesh taut. " _I am never leaving, Weiss._ "

It looked up, directly into Weiss' soul, and her heart stopped.

" _Because_ I _am_ you!" The monster shrieked with her voice and her face. Weiss stumbled back, her rapier falling from her trembling, loose grasp and thudding into the snow. She fell over as well, as the monster slowly crawled towards her. Her breaths came out short, and with entirely too little air. Her skull felt ready to explode while her heart felt ready to stop, _th_ - _thumping th-thumping th-thumping_ in her chest like a scared rabbit.

" _You're just a little doll, playing in your little dollhouse. As everyone around you moves on with their lives, you remain locked away."_ It crawled to Weiss' face, running a burning cold finger across her scar. It gently scooped up a tear – _when did I start crying, oh Oum is this it is this how I die –_ and savored it.

" _You shouldn't have left your little Dollhouse, girl._ " It pressed its blue lips to Weiss' ear.

" _This is how you die._ "

Weiss screamed.

* * *

 _ **At the same spot, a lifetime ago**_

* * *

"Weiss!"

She stood watching the snow, mesmerized by the drifting flakes. Snow; so beautiful, so peaceful, so pure…

" _Weiss!_ "

She caught one tenderly, letting the delicate ice gently fall into the palm of her hand. She continued to look on in awe of the-

Winter Schnee whapped Weiss right upside the head, inadvertently causing the snowflake to fall and merge with the snow. Weiss was stunned at first, but began a low cry that Winter abruptly shushed.

"It wasn't that hard." But the red mark was forming, very quickly, morphing into an ugly deep purple bruise. Winter unconsciously bit her lip, trying to hold it back, but the moment Weiss turned two watery blue eyes on her the guilt burst out and Winter sighed.

"Alright." Her arms crossed, and facing elsewhere, Winter muttered with an embarrassed huff "my apologies."

Weiss giggled and bopped Winter gently on the head. "Now we're even." The 10 year old declared victoriously, and Winter couldn't help but love her little sister all the more, smiling faintly.

The smiled faded as she recalled what she was here for. She cleared her throat with an authoritative, though shaky 'humph'. "Anyway, Weiss. As you know, it's time for…" her breath hitched momentarily "…tutoring."

The colour from Weiss' face drained, and Winter could tell this wasn't going to be easy. "Please, Weiss." She pleaded, earnest and caring. "It'll be easier if you just go along with it."

Winter knew Weiss wasn't aware of it, but when she was on the verge of panicking, she'd gingerly trace the scar. It was this and dozens of tells that let Winter know exactly what Weiss was thinking, and right now, Weiss was barely staving off hyperventilation.

The snow crunched underfoot as Winter strode closer, laying both hands on Weiss' shoulders reassuringly. Her little sister levied wide, terrified eyes at her, small body trembling with a sensation that had nothing to do with the cold.

"I'll be there if anything goes wrong. You trust me, don't you?" Weiss immediately nodded, and Winter's heart warmed in response. _No one in this family deserves her. No one_.

"Good." Winter said. She held Weiss tight, drawing her in as much for herself and as for her. "I… I love you, Weiss."

Weiss pressed herself in deeper, feeling the almost maternal embrace of her elder sister. "Love you too, sis."

* * *

Weiss impacted the tutoring room floor with a slam that left Winter flinching in shock, her little sister skidding along before colliding loudly again at the wall. She didn't move.

"Again." Their Father commanded, and so it was, without so much as a thought of protest.

The undisputed head of the Schnee Dust Corporation was as immobile as stone, yet his presence was enough to constrict Winter's lungs with an indescribable pressure. He held the Schnee Family Cane, which depicted two spiraling dragons of ice. Holding the Cane alone granted him power, as it was the most sacred of all Schnee heirlooms. Winter couldn't help but eye the handle, spotting the almost imperceptible gap between handle and shaft - alluding to the Cane's true form.

The medical staff waiting on hand – for Weiss had never left without the absolute necessity of aid since the day of her first tutoring, when she was only 7 years old – were visibly ready to protest, but it only took the _notion_ of a movement from Father to silence them.

The custom-manufactured Schnee training robot, an enormous metal knight more than 5 times Weiss' height, slowly raised its Greatsword. Its shadow loomed large and dark over the child, who had yet to rise from her earlier impact.

Blood steadily trickled from one ear, and Winter was fearing the worst.

But then Weiss' fingers twitched, and slowly, slowly, she propped herself up, Myrtenaster acting as a crutch. If a particularly hardy breeze had blown through just then, it would've blown her over – nevertheless, despite her egregious injuries, Weiss managed to stand. She faced her enemy with the sort of grim determination that made Winter proud.

"Attack." He commanded, and so it was that the metal behemoth swung downwards without pause or mercy.

Weiss couldn't dodge.

Though she had presented a strong front, Weiss had started crying the moment the order was given, so utterly afraid she couldn't so much as think as the end neared. Despite the expensive rapier and the training, she was still only 10 years old, and it showed when her only thought as to last words were whispered as-

"Winter - _help me_ -!"

Winter heard. Though Father and the no one else did over the groaning metal, somehow Winter was able. And when it came down to those last moments as certain death fell upon her little sister, when the decision was presented, when the consequences were presented before the immediate positives, Winter felt it wasn't really a choice.

Weiss spent a moment, then two, then three, then four wondering why she hadn't felt the enormous blade cleave her in twain, and the subsequent cold embrace of death. _Is death supposed to be painless?_ She cracked open an eye, curious at first, yet when she saw what laid before her she was left wide-eyed and slack-jawed.

Winter stood before her, Silberdistel already re-sheathed. A moment passed in silence.

The top half of the metal giant's sword fell away, harmlessly to the side, the rest of its body frozen solid in a grand construction of ice. The monstrosity abruptly groaned before falling apart, shattering into thousands of pieces.

Weiss watched in awe.

Winter cast a glance over her shoulder, smirking in a manner specifically reserved for those of Schnee heritage. "Well, that takes care of that."

Weiss, though she had more motor function in her eyebrows than the rest of her body combined, still found the strength to wrinkle her nose. "Really?" She whispered, throat hoarse from screaming. "That's the best one-liner you could come up with? Why not 'he wanted to act cold, so I made him ice', or 'someone took the order to 'Freeze!' too literally?'"

Winter's face twisted into a variety of rather abstract shapes before settling on anger. "How is _that_ anyway to-"

" **Winter.** "

They both froze, the moment of levity vanishing like smoke. The elder of the Schnee daughters straightened, immediately recognizing the situation for what it was. The consequences that would ensue from violating her Father's orders. Realization slowly bloomed in Weiss' eyes, and she started trembling.

" **We will talk.** "

He commanded it, and so it was.

* * *

It was her fault. It was all her fault.

Weiss pressed herself into her knees, tears spilling out as her crying continued.

If Weiss had just been a little stronger, not so _weak_ and unlike a true Schnee, then Winter would not be inside Father's study right now. She did not hear a single raised voice from the room, not so much as a whisper, but that was what scared her all the more. Her unconscious mind conjured more and more horrifying outcomes for her weakness, worrying herself into endless despair - plaguing her like mad beasts, relentless and vicious and hungry for her sanity.

And all those emotions must go somewhere. For Weiss Schnee, it was inward. She hated her weakness and despaired over it. She hated her father with a passion bordering on obsessive. But most of all, she was afraid. A little girl afraid of the dollhouse she spent her whole life in, the plastic yet glass-like walls that held it together. Like stacked cards, a simple shove from toppling over.

She didn't deserve someone as selfless as Winter. Her sister was the bestest, nicest, coolest person alive, and sometimes Weiss wondered if she'd be better off-

A knocking at the door pulled Weiss from her thoughts. "Excuse me," called the maid, "may I come in?"

Weiss' heart lightened the tiniest bit. She called out "you may!" with a hopeful tone and smiled wide as her best friend walked through the door, closing it with a gentle click.

"Hey," she said quietly, and Weiss waved back. Her friend's rabbit ears immediately flattened, an instinctive response to the emotional stimuli. Weiss always thought it was cute.

"...What's wrong?" The 10 year old rabbit faunus inquired lightly, at Weiss' side in a moment. Her friend's hand on her shoulder had an immediate effect, easing Weiss' nerves and stifling her tears for the time being. Weiss would guiltily admit to having waited for her best friend just for the chance to talk things out, to try and share the burden of her weakness. A twang of self-loathing came and passed before she started talking.

"Winter's in trouble. Because of me." Just saying it alone made the situation seem all the more dire. Weiss couldn't even _imagine_ what kind of -

"Weiss. Weiss - listen to me." Her friend whispered, slowly and soothingly stroking her pale hair. "It's not your fault." She had such a strong sense of empathy that it almost sounded like she was experiencing the pain just as potently as Weiss was. "I know your sister can be a bit of a meanie face - "

"- a very angry meanie face -"

"- and kind of, um... -"

"-antisocial."

"Antisocial. Yes. But if she did something, it's because she chose to."

"But she wouldn't have made the choice if it wasn't for me!" Weiss exclaimed so forcefully her friend flinched back with visible shock, eyes wide. "Every day, they dress and paint me up into a perfect little doll, with a perfect little smile, and I hate it! I hate all of it!" Though she had noticeably gone off-topic, Weiss didn't seem in the mood to care. "People just _use_ me and _expect_ me to be what they want, and then they want me to be thankful for it. But Winter's not like that." Weiss' voice softened, throat clogging with sobs and eyes pouring crystal tears. "S-She's the only family I have. You're my best friend, but I - I..." Weiss sniffled. " _I can't lose my big sister._ " She whispered in a broken voice. " _I just can't... I'd die..."_

And so Weiss fell silent, sobbing into her arms once more. Her friend took a moment, then two, and gently embraced the Schnee heir. They stayed together in a silence only broken by sobbing, one of Weiss' startlingly few times to vent her emotions.

Eventually, the rabbit Faunus servant of the Schnee family broke away, hands lightly placed on Weiss' shoulders. Weiss looked up, tears dripping still, wondering-

"You hate it. You hate dressing up when they tell you to." Though it was a statement, Weiss realized it was still some form of question. Or perhaps... confirmation. She nodded, slowly.

Her friend reached behind her neck and unclasped something, then presented the shining silver object within the palm of her hand. "This is... a necklace, that someone gave me a long time ago. Back before I was sold to the Schnee." She dangled it, revealing a sparkling chain ending with an elegant rose. "The... _man_... who ran the slave trade came in with a little girl one day. I thought she was just another Human come to laugh at me - instead, she gave me this, and told me it was something from her mother." Weiss was transfixed, utterly mesmerized, by the gleaming necklace. It was entirely possible she wasn't hearing a word that the former slave was saying. "She said I looked sad, sadder than the rest, and wanted me to have it. I said I couldn't possibly take something that precious, but she told me 'it's okay. Mom always told me, sometimes all somebody needs is to know is that somebody cares.'" The Faunus was visibly crying, light drops of water that belittled how much she felt. "It... it gave me the strength to keep going, to know that there was some light in the world, some Humans that care." She smiled, bright and hopeful and choking on her own emotion. "It let me be friends with you. And that's enough, I think, which is why-"

She put the necklace on Weiss' neck. "I want you to have it." Weiss blinked, mouth agape, shocked into silence. Her pale hands delicately traced the gleaming necklace, still in awe as her friend continued.

"Everything you wear may be theirs, but this necklace is yours. As long as you wear this, they can never own you like some doll." A sharp lance of warmth spread through Weiss' body, blooming in her cheeks and her eyes as the kindness of the gesture dawned on her.

"...I-" Weiss began.

"-I'm not letting you say no." Her friend said with a pout.

"...I... wasn't going to say no..." Weiss choked up, letting the necklace flow through her fingers. She cried once more, the last time for the evening. "I wanted to say... t-thank you..."

Velvet Scarlatina smiled brightly. "Hey... we're best friends, aren't we?"

Weiss didn't respond. She was too busy smiling in honest happiness.

* * *

 ** _Present, earlier that day_**

 _"We're best friends, aren't we?"_

And yet the screams refused to stop, Velvet's final, sorrowful stare ingrained in Weiss' vision as though bolted on. That same face, the look of regret that Weiss hated so much, because _how could you betray me so much, and like this_ , yet instead of just being a monster Velvet Scarlatina was still her best friend in the end and that made Weiss unable to sleep.

No, it wasn't Velvet that didn't let her sleep, not truly, it was the eyes and the voices. Bloody red rivulets ran down her arm, because she couldn't sleep but she still needed to get away. Away from the fear, anger, hate... and numbness. That awful numbness taking up the right half of her body, like a coffin she could never climb out of; it seemed to suffocate her. To do what all the other reaching hands of the screaming and staring could not, and touch her. The longer it went on for, the longer she continued to breathe, the closer the hands came. Suffocation was just a breath away, always a breath away, no matter how hard and how long she breathed.

These fits came and passed, as she functioned (as loosely as the word functioned may be applied possible) in one moment and couldn't remember how to breath the next. _Myrtenaster_ tempted her every moment of it all, like a Siren's song, whispering sweet images of a person not dissimilar to herself hunched forward with a silver rapier speared through their neck, smiling. Always smiling, smiling, smiling, all of the faces smiling...

Weiss wondered if this was how she'd spend the rest of her life, locked in her room, unable to differentiate between reality and fantasy.

" _We're best friends, aren't we?"_

Weiss screamed, so quietly to her own ears, yet so hard her vocal cords began to give - _have I been screaming, I didn't notice,_ she thought dimly somewhere in her broken mind - hands clawing and tearing at her skull. She sobbed endlessly, rocking back and forth.

"Somebody... _help me_..."

...

...

 _"...We're best friends, aren't we?"_

* * *

If all things go according to plan I have uploaded this just before I move and become without internet for like 2 weeks. How will I survive? I dunno. Maybe just play Dishonored... for like the billionth time...

 **The cake is a lie. You do not receive cake unless you review. Only those who review receive cake. Don't you want cake?**


	2. The Snow: Part I

_Recommended listening: Dead Island Trailer music (Without Effects), can be found as a YouTube video uploaded by Logan Cypher (at the time of writing)_

 **RWBY Backstories:**

 _Porcelain, II: (2 of ?)_

 _The Snow_

 _Greetings ladies and gentlemen of the RWBY fanfiction community!_

 _( **You know, I'm actually pretty disappointed that I've only received one review so far. Too many people seeing Weiss and Velvet in the character tags and all of a sudden they say 'not my ship lol nope'? If I'm doing something wrong I'd appreciate knowing it, so... review pls** )_

 _For the record, I am committed enough to this shtick that I type out my welcome by hand every time. It'd be against the spirit of it to copy/paste it, so..._

 _Second chapter. More story. Weiss continues to barely function. We have intersection with another, future RWBY Backstories story that I have only written the first half of the first chapter for. And if not this chapter, then probably the next... probably..._

 _Fun fact: I wrote this chapter after I wrote chapters 3 and 4... and 5. Expect those updates to be quick...ish... need to edit them a little more... eventually..._

* * *

Entire ages seem to pass between each tick of the clock for Weiss Schnee, waiting and waiting for her sister to emerge from her Father's office.

 _Tick. Tick. Tick._ And yet, never tock. Weiss wondered if it was a fault in the design. Perhaps it had simply been built wrong, brought into this world incapable of fulfilling its most basic of duties. Or perhaps it had cracked under the constant pressure it was exposed to in the Schnee Manor, always dependent on - the time. The time. She was talking about the time. Then she wondered who was she was justifying herself too...

"...Stupid clock." She muttered after a moment of silence, suddenly sullen despite Velvet's best efforts. Weiss huffed, face laid in the palm of her hand, legs crossed. She glared at the clock for good measure.

Still, it did not tock. No matter how much she wanted it to.

Winter Schnee emerged from their Father's office with a subtle click of turning locks, but in the long hallways of the Schnee Manor it was more than loud enough to startle Weiss. Wide eyed, she blinked owlishly at her sister, who moved past with a hurried, urgent gait. Weiss called out -

"Winter!" And had every intention of saying something, _anything_ more, but Winter's gaze turned those words into silence.

The emotions flowing behind Winter's eyes could only be described as wild, twisting and swirling and writhing like a living thing. Far too much needed to be said to speak so much as a single word, so Winter only stared, silent. Then, she turned, and walked away.

Weiss wondered why she was completely silent as Winter left. Presumably for the same reason that the clock couldn't tock.

 _Tick. Tick. Tick._

 _Tick._

* * *

There were times in Weiss' life that plastic felt like a poison. Poison that seeped into every pore of her being, through her feet and hands, hands and feet; as though the plastic coffin hadn't been enough.

So when she needed somewhere to breath and let her wounds heal, she put on her warmest clothes, came here and sang.

There was no real method to her song, simply words she felt and then spoke. Her sister had always praised her voice, encouraging her to practice when she could. Which she did, for a time. But then Father became suspicious, and there were very few things that he disliked which did not disappear (or worse, start suiting his purposes), so Weiss kept her secret with the dead forest. And that was that.

Under the dead tree with 'Snow White' carved in its hide, she sang freely and openly. She liked to think of the decrepit trees like an audience, a weathered audience. Having felt the worst life has to offer, they come here to listen to the young princesses voice, and let the soft tones carry their worries away. The trees were long past saving physically, so if nothing else, their weather-beaten spirits could be uplifted through song.

" _Tell me... who's the loneliest of all?_ "

("I love you, Weiss.")

Perhaps unsurprisingly, her heart poured lyrics of grief and despair upon her lips. A sorrowful soul, singing in a sorrowful voice, yet not a tear was shed.

("We're best friends, aren't we?")

" _Mirror, Mirror... tell me something..."_ Her breath hitched, legs parting as she sank to her knees. It suddenly became almost physically painful to continue her song, limbs shaking, kneeling in the snow. But her audience deserved better than a broken performer, so she heaved air into constricted lungs and continued again.

"... _Who's the loneliest of all_?"

("You'll... make me proud... Weiss...")

Wet drips softly impacted the snow, though the pain had settled deep enough that a sort of numbness had overcome Weiss, and she felt none of it. Noticed none of it.

" _...I'm..."_ She heaved, body shuddering in agony. " _...the loneliest... of all..."_

Then, and only then, as her imaginary audience silently applauded her beautiful, heartfelt song, did Weiss Schnee allow herself to start bawling like a broken child.

She could not tock, and she never would.

* * *

It was practically impossible to discern the passing of time in this dead, listless place. The snow neither diminished nor absconded, always falling the same way from before the sun rose and long after the moon set. Civilisations could rise and fall before one realized how long they'd been trapped here.

Which was why, once Weiss opened her eyes to the dark sky, she could only wonder with no hope of an answer in a voice hoarse from crying-

"...How long have I been here?"

She laid in the snow, finding herself almost buried by it when she had awoken. The dead forest was silent as it had ever been, snow softly drifting to the ground. She reached out, snow parting in clumps, grasping at the sky as if to tear it off like wallpaper. But reality could not be defied so easily, the walls of the Dollhouse made of marble and glass and steel.

"If you were here, Mom..." Weiss whispered to the only one who ever truly listened. "...What would you think of me?" Her hand lowered, falling back into the snow. The lonely girl continued to muse aloud. "Winter tries so hard to be like you. She's even wielding _Silberdistel,_ just like you did. But it's not... it's still not you." She turned her head, staring sideways at an already twisted world. "I know not all faunus are like the ones that... killed you... but sometimes when I see Velvet I just think-" her eyes closed, breath hitching as she fought to confess. "I just think... if I had a choice... I'd save you over her... everytime..." she sniffed, voice breaking. "Does... does that make me a bad person? For wishing my best friend was dead if it meant you were still here?" Her palms pressed into eyes that were moist once again. "Everybody's fallen apart since you were gone. Winter, Dad... me... I don't know how much longer any of us are going to keep the pretense up. It's like drowning... except nobody knows when they're out of air."

She curled up into a ball.

"Sometimes... all I want is to... to see you. Just one more time. It hurts so much I feel like I'd do anything just for the chance. It... it scares me. I don't want to do something that'll hurt Winter... but I..." She was quiet for a long moment. "Sometimes I feel like I'm running out of time. Like if I wait long enough, I'll just become plastic. A doll. And then they won't let me do it. They never will... not unless I-"

The snow crunched softly as the careful footsteps of someone unknown traversed the broken trees. Then at the tree line, the footsteps stopped, and the crying girl heard a quiet "Weiss?" in a rather familiar voice.

The heiress in question did not move, but muttered back a rather surprised "Velvet?"

Her best friend, maid outfit draped in cheap yet thick clothing, immediately rushed to her aid, falling to her knees at Weiss' side.

"Are you hurt?"

"No..." Yes. Yes, it hurt. It hurt so much all she could do was breath and let the snow make the pain go away.

A palm was pressed against Weiss' forehead, who gave no resistance, no willpower left. Velvet gasped. "Weiss, you're freezing. We have to get inside and warm you up."

"No..." Why couldn't she stay here? With the tired trees and soft snow, resting her head? All she wanted was to sleep. Sleep and dream of a happy family, of warmth, something she couldn't even remember no matter how hard she closed her eyes.

"It's okay. It's okay. I've got you." And Velvet heaved with muscles only a former slave could develop, lifting Weiss onto her back without difficulty.

"But..." The sky was such a lovely shade of white. So pure... so peaceful... why couldn't she stay here?

"No buts. I'm carrying you back." Her friend chimed in determinedly, and then they were off, a steady gait in a dead forest, snow crunching softly underfoot.

The subtle rocking of Velvet's walk soothed Weiss, not unlike the gentle rocking of a mother's arms. The thought burned like fire, reigniting the tears in Weiss' eyes. She reached out, grabbing the faunus' thick garments, and refused to let go.

"...I'm not worth it." The snow was picking up, forming a white haze that would soon be blinding, steadily swirling into a blizzard. They'd need to be inside soon - it was fortunate that Velvet came when she did.

"Weiss-" Her encouraging words were drowned out by the roaring snow, but Weiss had seen the look of warmth upon Velvet's face, and at that time it was enough.

Wandering listlessly and aimlessly through her memories, however, the older, less sane present-day Weiss Schnee could not find that warmth, looking on from the background. Just a thickly clothed figure obscured by the snow.

Then the snow came forward with thundering force, and all was lost in the sudden silence of a pure white haze.

* * *

Weiss blinked weary eyes and sighed deeply, softly closing her advanced placement textbook. She'd come back for some much needed rest only to discover that in the process of venturing into the forest to clear her head, she'd forgone her homework. Ever the dutiful one (" **I do not tolerate disobedience in my kingdom, Weiss. You will _work_.** "), she immediately sat herself at her desk and worked it through, and now with a migraine that could split a mountain, she'd finally finished it in the dead of night. Only the ever watchful Schnee Guardian robots were awake as this hour, silently prowling the halls for intruders.

Though she would've been more comfortable in her bed, the exhausted Weiss Schnee let out a small yawn, and squirmed comfortably in her seat, laying on the desk. This... this... would do...

She drifted softly off to sleep, and in the world of chaotic white snow spread before her window, dark figures moved with eyes of red.

It was a dreamless sleep, or perhaps Weiss had simply never recalled what it was about - nonetheless there was an ungodly loud knocking at Weiss' door that shook her awake hard enough that she fell from her seat with a thud, rubbing her posterior and muttering "owie..."

"Weiss." Velvet whispered harshly, and the Schnee heiress straightened. Velvet sounded worried... very worried.

Weiss, blinking lethargically, shook her head and sighed. She rose, opening the door for Velvet with quiet steps as she whispered to her friend "I'm sorry?"

"Weiss." And somehow, it was only then that Weiss noticed the tears in Velvet's eyes. In her voice. "We have to get out of here."

"Velvet..." Weiss whispered back. "What happened?"

But the sheer, utter panic in Velvet's eyes gave no definitive answer, nor did she. The Faunus grabbed her hand with more force than Weiss thought the quiet girl could muster, startling her slightly, and said "no time. We have to go. Right. Now." Weiss blinked slowly. "Now!" Velvet screamed in her face, and Weiss jumped.

"Okay! Okay! Just... let me get Myrtenaster first!" Velvet was partway through iterating yet again how little time they had, before she noticed Weiss had already disappeared back inside, moments later reappearing with Myrtenaster at her hip. She was still wearing her sleeping gown.

"Alright. Let's go."

And off they went, but it was scant moments later that Weiss finally asked what this was all about.

Velvet gave a significant look over her shoulder, biting her lip hard enough her mouth turned white. "I'll tell you soon," Velvet settled on, "just please, keep walking."

Weiss nodded in nervous confusion, antsy, but willing to play along. She trusted her best friend completely.

But as they trudged quietly through the Schnee manor's halls, Weiss felt an growing sense of unease. Where were the security bots? And even though it _was_ the middle of the night... why was it so _quiet_? Something was... wrong.

An unusual smell happened upon Weiss' nose. _Did... somebody overcook their dinner?_ A particularly meaty dinner at that. Velvet, with her Faunus sense of smell, paled immediately and whispered "oh no... we have to _hurry_!" And started into a run, Weiss following suit.

Was all this just about a stove fire? No... no, it must've been more than that. The servants were more than competent enough (most of them, anyway) to contain a simple blaze. The unease in Weiss' stomach blossomed to something much, _much_ worse.

Fear. Real, true fear - in which after no notable exertion Weiss found herself clawing for every breath, sweating and heaving, eyes darting everywhere in search of invisible threats. Adrenaline pumped hot and heavy through her veins, intensifying every sensation. When the smell only began to worsen as they kept going, this adrenaline kept pumping, flowing, in time with her hammering heart.

And when they exited the hallway into one of the living rooms, Weiss' stomach fell out through her feet.

Everything was _burning_.

Roaring flames as high as the ceiling burned carpet, tables, furniture, bookcases, chandeliers, portraits - _everything_. Casting it all in an orange haze, like a vision of Hell. The smoke from it all choked Weiss in a vice grip, burning her eyes and leaving her a coughing mess. Velvet had to practically drag Weiss out of the room, out of the smoke, but it soon became apparent that escape would not be easy.

 _Everything_ _was burning._ The walls, the floors, the entire manor was on fire. There was nowhere to run except through the smoke and the flames. Velvet steeled herself, then glanced at the person in her arms. "Weiss! Weiss, I need you to hold my hand! We have to... to run through!"

Weiss was busy coughing her lungs out, but somehow managed a wheezy affirmation between fits. She gave a squeeze to Velvet's hand, and in one fluid motion the two friends threaded their hands together and _ran_. Dashing through the vision of hell, the raging fire and the suffocating smoke. More than once something had fallen in a fiery blaze and only Velvet's natural Faunus reflexes and Weiss' 'tutoring' kept them from becoming red paste. The two best friends ran for their lives, the whole world against them, but together, they proved completely untouchable.

Weiss took one of their rare moments of reprieve to glance at Velvet, seeing the determined, certain look on her face, or however much of it from the side anyway. She would say it to no one, a secret taken to the grave, but that moment, together, as the world fell apart...

Weiss wouldn't have traded that for the world. To feel... to feel... _this_...

Then Velvet let go of Weiss hand, the spell was broken, and the feeling vanished. They'd emerged into one of the larger main dining halls, also ablaze, stopping to rest for only a moment. The manor's enormous size was working against them, as for security reasons there were very few accessible exits. Still, Weiss had it on good authority that her father had an escape route built into the Manor from the ground up. If nothing else, he'd survive this.

"Come on," Velvet said once Weiss had regained her breath. "We have to keep m-" Velvet's words died in her throat as her eyes widened drastically, body frozen at the sight before her. She'd only just rounded the corner, and Weiss, dread welling in her gut, stepped forward to ask what was wrong. Velvet immediately rounded on her and pinned her against the wall, screaming in her face "no! Don't! _He's_ here!"

"Who?" Weiss bit out as Velvet gently let her down, once again surprising the heiress with her strength.

"The leader of the White Fang." Velvet said in such a grave voice it was almost like she'd cursed.

Weiss' dread liquefied into fear. Slowly, Weiss walked forward, eyes unfocused and deaf to Velvet's pleas. She peeked around the corner, a strange determination to see this man for herself filling her.

To see the man who'd supposedly murdered her mother.

As it turns out, he was surprisingly young, about the same age as Winter, with a shock of red hair and a mask that covered his eyes. Wearing a dark suit with a blade on each hip, he stood as intimidating and menacing as Weiss expected, more of a brute than a person.

Then there was the other one. A cat Faunus about her age, with midnight black hair and enchanting golden eyes that gleamed ominously through her mask, like a predator.

"Our information appears to have been accurate." The red-haired one spoke, carrying on a conversation as the manor burned down around them. "Honestly, with how the Schnee treat Faunus, I'd expected them to have sent those group of servants as a decoy to draw us in and then kill us."

"They owe the Schnee no debt," his accomplice said evenly, perfectly calm. Unnaturally calm. "I'd doubt they'd ever be coerced into lying for them, no matter the bargaining chip."

"They've murdered families before," the White Fang leader said bitterly. "I don't expect monsters to know restraint."

"...Not all of them are monsters." From his sudden shift in stance, the Faunus (strange... Weiss didn't see any animalistic traits. What _was_ he?) required immediate rectification of that statement. Very immediate. "I mean that it's not wrong to say that Kalt Schnee deserves what he gets, but his daughters, his employees... if monsters know no restraint, then what does that make us?"

"In case you forgot, _I_ am leading the White Fang. It is my duty to decide what we do. Your opinion is... appreciated, but the change you still hope for will take time we sorely lack, and will never, ever have. If we are to build a new world, it must be from the ashes of the old one-"

The Cat Faunus' ear twitched, and that was all the warning Weiss got before the wall she hid behind was sliced through, Adam Taurus having almost cleaved her head from her shoulders. Only Velvet's reflexes saved Weiss' life, and even so, as the leader of the White Fang stood over them as they cowered in fear, it didn't appear to be for long.

"There's the heiress we were looking for." He reached, grasping Weiss hair and hoisting her by the scalp. She grimaced, writhing in his grip; Velvet moved to intervene when a black blade was pressed hard against her throat. She looked up at Adam's accomplice, body shaking and expression terrified.

Blake Belladonna just shook her head.

"We only need the one daughter. Send word out; if the elder sister is found, kill her on sight." Weiss went rigid, slowly levying her stare at Adam's mask. Through the slits, into his eyes.

She saw only rage. And somehow, the thought of a creature reliant solely on such an emotion made her all the more terrified. This was not a man who knew reason, or restraint, or honour... only an urge to fuel the endless blaze.

Weiss cried silently in anguish, as her hands went slack in Adam's grip. He stared, puzzled by the sudden lack of reaction.

"...What, you accept defeat already?" He grunted deeply. "Coward."

"...A creature like you..." came a whisper from nowhere, like the early morning chill. Adam immediately whizzed around, Wilt and Blush ready to be drawn at a moment's notice. "...does not have the right..."

A white blur burst from the other end of the hall, a flash of silver and suddenly Adam Taurus was pressed against a wall, Winter Schnee shouting right in his face.

"-TO LECTURE ABOUT HONOUR! YOU COME TO OUR HOME, SLAUGHTER OUR SERVANTS, AND SET IT ALL ABLAZE!" Weiss, in her life, had never seen Winter so... so... _angry_. Indescribable rage etched into her normally immaculate face, red and sweaty from exertion. Soot and blood stained her clothes, though Weiss noted with a strange hint of pride none of it appeared to be her own. "AND WORST OF ALL... YOU HAVE THE _GALL_ TO HARM _MY SISTER!?_ " Winter _growled,_ like a savage beast, her voice lowering a few octaves. "No one. Touches. My. _Sister_."

Adam's apprentice chose that moment to intervene with a slash that did not land, as Winter drove Silberdistel on a course through his chest, forcing the Schnee princess to back away. Adam gingerly messaged his nearly-crushed throat, disdain and hatred written clearly on the lower half of his face, his apprentice taking a stance. Winter glared back, utterly defiant. She cast a glance at her sister, still trapped at Adam's side, overlooking the Faunus servant entirely. They were, after all, ultimately replaceable; her sister was not.

Tense moments of silence passed as both fighters waited for the right opportunity, the perfect moment of distraction. The additional fighter on Adam's side made little difference to someone of Winter's skill, thus she focused solely on him. Where he went, the faunus girl was inclined to follow, she imagined. Then the two shared a look, barely a second long, and she wordlessly went to guard Weiss.

Adam found his moment first, when Winter cast a millisecond long glance at her sister. Except as Adam neared with a strike thtreatening to pierce her guide, she smirked, sword slashing upward in a spray of frost. Adam barely corrected himself from being frozen solid, enraged beyond words at being... _baited_ like a wild animal. Still, his sudden change in momentum, left him off-balance, and Winter would never, ever let him recover, accosting him with a flurry of thrusts and feints and slashes.

Weiss watched in awe, something painful knotting in her chest at the realization this was a level she'd probably never reach. This...

...a flash of silver and frost and the very ground was being manipulated by Winter, transformed into ice he found he traction on but Winter only moved faster with, denying him room to dodge as she continued on her assault, seamlessly merging dust usage and swordplay...

... _this_ was talent. The newest embodiment of the legendary Schnee natural talent.

And Weiss would never compare. The ugliest of emotions, jealously, fluttered momentarily in Weiss' chest as despair flooded through, the sheer helplessness of only being _baggage_ overwhelming her. Here she was, the world falling apart around her, her sister doing her damnedest to save her, and she felt... _this_.

Velvet's abrupt but welcome touch pulled Weiss from her thoughts. The Rabbit faunus, eyes red and puffy, and barely speaking above a whisper, still had the ability to smile. "It's okay. It's okay. Just... stay..." Velvet's voice suddenly hitched, the smile vanishing instantly. "Stay... c-c-c... ca..." Then she was crying, once again, sobbing into Weiss shoulder.

Even Weiss' emotional support needed emotional support. This... was a bad day.

The Faunus with the dark hair watched on impassively, carrying an air of stillness that even most inanimate objects lacked. She turned back, watching her savior fight what was perhaps his hardest battle yet. Winter was absolutely deadly with her rapier, but perhaps even more so with the subtle tricks and positioning tactics she was using. Though Adam's raw instinct's were unbelievable, it seemed he'd met his antithesis; discipline. Precise, expertly applied discipline, to concentrate implicitly and continuously outwit enemies.

Whatever the outcome, this was a quality of battle extremely few would ever see.

Adam skidded back, panting and heaving as blood poured from numerous wounds. Even his egregiously large stamina had run out, barely standing save for his unyielding determination and rage. To his sides, walls of ice disavowed any escape. Winter had him right where she wanted him; it was impossible to avoid the fact that he'd almost certainly lost.

She sighed deeply, her own stamina nearly depleted. "Even for a savage beast, your raw instinct is... impressive. With proper training, you might've been something to be feared. Instead, you're just a wild animal, in desperate need of being _put down_." She sneered, Silberdistel beginning to glow and hum. She slowly raised it, the light and noise intensifying, until the blade was silhouetted in white and vibrating at a frequency above the human ear's spectrum.

Adam was utterly still as his demise neared. There was no dodging the attack, and thus, he closed his eyes, hands on his weapons even in certain death.

A Glyph the size of Winter Schnee burst from her rapier, hovering in place as it slowly began to spin. More of them emerged from her back, rotating faster and faster until they blurred into a white haze.

They stopped moving, hovering ominously. Then like a coiled spring, Winter Schnee burst forth with her gleaming rapier at twice the speed of sound, shattering the acceleration Glyphs in her wake.

Adam vanished into the explosion of white light that followed Winter's finishing attack, _Spinning Snowflake,_ one Weiss recognized immediately. She'd come up with the idea... but it took Winter's skill with her semblance to actually pull it off. A field of acceleration maintained at its maximum, all its power focused onto a single person...

It was a wonder Winter didn't just shatter the veil of reality and wind up in another dimension.

The white glow persisted, falling embers of aura from such a massive expenditure, obscuring Adam's certainly skewered body and Winter's hunched over form - a likely picture-perfect thrust, directly through the heart. And when the light faded, the thrum of Winter's vibrating rapier dying down, Weiss first thought that was exactly what she saw. Except there was no blood.

Adam had blocked the attack, his sword, hair and intricate markings on his clothes glowing bright red.

It was the moment that followed that would change Weiss' life forever.

For Adam smirked, as his semblance absorbed the raw force and energy of such a devastating attack, Winter's shock too overbearing for her to realize what had happened immediately, and fall back. Then, he raised his glowing blade, and Weiss' world burst into blinding red light.

* * *

 _The plan is malleable._

 _Weiss did not need to lose her sister - not for many years, anyway. The plan did not include her directly - more as a figure of relevance than importance. A character to give context and texture to the plan, necessary for the framework, the preparation, rather than the actualities._

 _Make no mistake, mortal. We are not inherently benevolent nor malevolent beings. But there are those who take their duties of otherworldly rule and use it to... change the plan. Manipulate it to their leisure, and while it has some give, it has limits._

 _The Witch has not changed the plan significantly. But the wide-reaching consequences of what she has changed caused the plan to alter itself, out of necessity, and thus some adjustments must be made._

 _For Weiss' destiny to be fulfilled, due to the machinations of the Witch, Winter Schnee must die. It is.. the only way._

 _And for once in many millennia, I am truly saddened by the necessity of the plan. None should be made to suffer this. But the suffering has already occurred before, at the behest of the plan, so it is the very nature of the plan - to preserve **the Cycle**_ _\- for it to happen once more._

 _The birth of a dark God. Lord, how I wish I did not have to bear witness to this again..._

* * *

Weiss' very being became pain.

Utter, endless pain. Burning pain. Agonizing pain. The skin on her body, perhaps more, had been nothing short of disintegrated. Atomized. Torn apart by vengeful hands, she was flayed alive by Adam's semblance.

She awoke to a world still burning, much the same as before, except the fire seemed to have spread to every pore on her body. Her entire right side was.. gone. Vaporized. Only blackened flesh remained, and it truly spoke of the power aura possessed that Weiss was still alive.

Laying on her side, unable to move amidst the crippling pain of a burning, skinless body, she watched on with eyelid-less eyes. Watched the sideways world as she saw her sister, who'd taken the attack head away, and hadn't the mercy of being at least some distance away, crawl with blackened stumps for arms away from Adam Taurus. Her aura kicked in momentarily, repairing the damage of the attack, but Weiss, who'd probably used all of hers just to stay alive at this point, remained immobile and corpse-like.

Adam sauntered up to Winter's recuperating form, smirking as he lorded over the fallen Schnee prodigy. She managed on new limbs to flop herself over, breathing raggedly at the physical expenditure, and glared defiantly at the leader of the White Fang. Her clothes were nonexistent, and she preserved her modesty with bare scraps.

Adam was unscathed, save his prior wounds.

"You call me an animal. A monster. I say look at you now. Look at where your feigned superiority has gotten you. You Schnees are all the same, treating Faunus as less than nothing, underestimating us. Well guess what? I _beat_ you _._ My semblance allowed me to redirect the power of your attack - quite poetic, don't you think? The villain gets a taste of their own medicine."

Several members of the White Fang approached, Adam's gaze flickering to them briefly.

He sneered. "Except this isn't enough. No, nothing will ever be enough. But I know what will come close..."

"Sir," one of them said with a textbook salute and visible fear. Blood soaked him through. They'd clearly been busy. "We've finished eliminating the security force on hand. We should leave before reinforcements arrive." He briefly eyed Winter's defeated form, who was still glaring furiously. She turned the look on him and he visibly stepped back, swallowing before resuming his previous posture - but perhaps a slightest bit tenser. "I presume your objective has been completed?"

"You presume correctly." Adam boasted.

"And what of the other sister?" The grunt inquired.

Adam gestured to the side. The Faunus present turned and saw, some gasping, one losing his lunch. Only the speaker remained quiet, expression unreadable behind his Grimm mask.

"Dead, obviously." Except she wasn't. She was alive and in pain, watching it all with eyelid-less eyes. Dust, what a sight she must be to have people instantly assume she was dead...

Then Winter turned, finally seeing what everyone else saw. She froze, glare vanishing beneath an expression of utmost surprise and horror.

"Weiss-!" She croaked out, choking and coughing as the damage from Adam's attack made itself known once more. Adam stared down with disdain.

He reached forward, grasping her white locks, cruelly hoisting her up single-handedly. It was a testament to his brutal strength that he could do so when utterly exhausted. The last of Winter's modesty fell away without Winter's hands to hold it, falling scraps of cloth, leaving some to marvel at her beautiful, naked form. Some were open in their lust, others more modest. The reporting grunt was the only one to bother looking away.

"I and Blake will attempt to pursue Kalt Schnee. He's likely to have escaped by now, but it never hurts to investigate his study. It might leads us to his hideout." He gestured to Winter's body. "I leave her in your care. _Don_ ' _t_ be gentle." He threw her to the wolves, visibly ravenous, watching as they devoured Winter utterly with roaming hands and violent tugging. He turned his back, uncaring of the violation going on behind him.

"Blake!"

The rubble next to him shifted, Blake - and the one she'd saved from the blast, Velvet - stepping out of it with definitive grace. She took a moment to read the situation, and for fractions of a second, her mask lifted to reveal someone utterly disgusted with the proceedings around them. A moment later her mask was back in place, though Velvet had yet to stop gaping in horror after taking it all in, sobbing miserably.

"W-Winter... _Weiss_!" She squeaked, hand pressed to her mouth to stave off the vomit. It came anyway, Velvet crying loudly all the while, Winter's violators audibly moaning in the background.

The cat faunus stared a silent conversation with her master.

"Leave her," he commanded, "she'll be coming with us when we leave, alongside the Schnee."

Blake released Velvet from her grip, however reluctantly. Stepping to Adam's side, they walked in tandem away from the degradation of Winter Schnee, who cried out in pain as one of her captor's laughed cruelly.

They were gone for 43 minutes and 51 seconds. Weiss counted every moment as she watched with lidless eyes. Watching. Watching.

Watching.

"W-Weiss..." Winter cried out in her moment of weakness, reaching for the heavens. They would not answer. "Weiss..." Her tears flowing like silver snowflakes, falling to the earth as masterpieces of sorrow. Monuments to Weiss' failure, to her weakness. Tick.

Watching.

Velvet, once released, immediately ran to Weiss' side. She was reflexively about to hug her best friend when she pulled back as though burned, unwilling to touch what very well could be a dead body.

"Weiss..." She cried, heaving in endless sorrow. More tears flowing. Why did it always have to be tears? Did they always have to cry when they were sad? Was that why Weiss could never tick? She was supposed to be a good little heir, do what Daddy says, and grow up molded in their image. And so would she do, when she bore child, and so would they... the Dollhouse that sustained itself. Dolls that made themselves. Plastic birthing plastic, an eternal cycle.

Maybe, if Weiss had never been born, then Winter would still be alive right now. Maybe their mother would be as well. If nothing else, they'd certainly have lived better lives without such a complete failure interfering with them. If only Weiss wasn't such a failure. If only she could've done something. If... if... if...

Why?

Why did it have to be _Winter_? Why her family, her sister? Why... why... did such terrible things happen to good people?

Velvet gasped, watching the tears suddenly pour from her friend's eye. Eye. The other one was gone.

"Weiss!" She breathed. "You're-" Her voice suddenly quietened as realization visibly bloomed in her, lowering herself to Weiss' remaining ear. "You're alive." She whispered in a broken voice. "Oh, oh Dust... you're alive... I thought I... I thought I'd gotten you killed... oh Dust..." She had less qualms about touching Weiss' body, knowing she was alive, though she refrained where she could, her sense of empathy once again strong enough to immediately realize the pain she'd cause if she so much as brushed a finger along the blackened muscle and bone.

Watching.

Winter was limp in their grip, all thought of rebellion drained away at the perceived loss of her sister. She was something they used, an object, little better than a warm corpse.

Watching.

Their eyes met. Somehow, amidst the writhing bodies, Winter saw Weiss' tears. Her listless expression was briefly overcome by surprise, before relief flooded her eyes. Gagging and choking as she was, the violent rebels fulfilling their fantasies with their greatest enemy. Which was a vile fantasy in of itself, something they clearly enjoyed. Holding ultimate power over someone's life... they relished their control with monstrous glee, swept up in their hatred to commit an atrocity without a second thought.

Watching.

The violation continued, Weiss and Velvet both utterly powerless. Having little choice otherwise, they waited, and waited, and waited...

and Watched.

Though it was of no consolation to Weiss, nor something that even crossed her mind, at least the tears were keeping her eye from going dry... though by now she would've gladly ripped it out.

Anything to keep the images of her sister's violation out of her young mind, but like a poison, it had already settled too deep.

* * *

By the time Adam had come back, Weiss had long gone past the point of being unable to bear anymore. She wanted to look away, but the slightest movement might alert the preternaturally perceptive Faunus to her presence. To them, she was just a disfigured corpse, and as horrible as it was to realize, her best chance of getting out alive revolved around maintaining that façade. So she continued to do the only thing she could, even when she couldn't bear it anymore.

She watched.

Adam's return startled many of those clamoring for a chance at the fabled Schnee prodigy into haphazard action - performing a brisk salute only to idly realize they had yet to zip back up. Then there were those who didn't even care, too _involved_ , and continued their haunting moans of bestial pleasure.

Adam wrinkled his nose, the smell being to his obvious distaste. Still, he continued on, utterly unfazed by what he'd done.

"Kalt is gone. We'll take his still-living daughter as a bargaining chip - he'll come to _us_."

Weiss' insignificant, weak heartbeat still managed to almost throb with rage at the arrogant, careless mockery of a person standing before her. She'd heard what people said about herself and her sister, how cold the Schnee family acted as a whole - and it was warranted. Weiss was not a people person, and neither was Winter. They'd both been raised to view people as objects, something they'd both only taken partially to. But this... this _thing_... was a level of wrong almost unfathomable. Weiss genuinely never believed anybody could do what he did, and with such an obvious lack of guilt.

So involved was Weiss with her thoughts of Adam Taurus, it took several moments for her to realize Winter was staring right at her. Her eyes still bore the lifelessness of total defeat, but now there was a gleam in them Weiss did not like. Velvet stayed curled in on herself, releasing a broken sob every now and then. Blake's gaze flickered between her master and the Schnee daughters, mask and stance betraying nothing. If she noticed the exchange, she was refusing to say a word.

Weiss didn't even know what Winter was doing at first, her vision obscured by the writhing bodies. But the tell-tale sudden change in lighting, the white light billowing from her broken body, was more than enough to indicate her actions - she'd gathered her aura.

Adam paused, slowly looking back with the gaze of someone looking at another who just didn't know when to quit.

In a flash of red, he'd drawn Wilt and pressed it against Winter's throat. The commotion had caused several of the would-be rapists to back off, stumbling in fear of the abrupt aggression from their boss, whose temper was legendary. Velvet looked up from between her knees, and amidst the rapid change of events, somehow met Winter's eyes.

A single look passed between them, Velvet slowly beginning to shake her head. Winter's gaze persisted, until Velvet was shaking her head as though to tear it off, whispering "no no no no I can't do that... I just can't... too many people have already died today..."

Weiss' mounting frustration at and fear of the secretive acts culminated in sobering realization, like a glass of ice water steadily poured onto a raging flame. Weiss and Winter's eyes met for the last time.

"Run," she croaked in a voice hoarse from screaming, the shorter blade of Silberdistel she'd collected while Adam was distracted by the lightshow gleaming in her left hand.

Then in a burst of speed that spent the last of her aura, she jammed it into Adam's eye.

* * *

Everything exploded into chaos. Screams and gasps and cries of outrage all trying to drown each other out as the room once inhabited solely by the sound of rape was now bursting with noise.

Adam, visibly shaking in rage and pain, tore the weapon from Winter's grip, shattering her arm in the process. She made no effort to stifle her pain, screaming freely, as Adam raised her by the neck with a single hand. He levied the blade with purposeful sluggishness, dragging it across her flesh and her screams finally stopped, throat utterly raw and rendered incapable of noise. Slowly, languidly, he dragged the blade until it hovered over her left eye.

Roaring in primal rage, Adam tore into Winter's skull with vicious abandon, hacking her apart as brains and blood and bone fell to the earth like rain, until there was nothing left but a jagged stump and the heaving breaths of a madman.

Blake was stunned into utter silence, the action so sudden it took several moments for her to return to normalcy.

It was those precious few seconds that allowed Velvet, carrying Weiss' broken body, to get a life-saving headstart.

For the literal moment the room burst into noise and motion, Velvet scooped Weiss up in a careful grip and ran for all she was worth. All that mattered now, even as she heard Winter's screams endlessly reverberate in her skull, was saving her best friend.

She ran and ran and ran through the home on its last legs, the fires long since burned themselves out. Where there had been wooden flooring before was now empty air and blackened edges. Only the marble main hallway's had survived, scorched and reeking of burning flesh and smoke but still stable. She ran, as the order to pursue was given, backtracking through the home she could navigate blindfolded. Her knowledge of the proverbial land was the sole reason she was alive so far, exploiting her pursuers lack of knowledge to let her outwit them, sides and passages taken to sidestep and avoid pursuit. Everything in her mind worked impossibly fast, the fabled reflexes of the rabbit pushed beyond its limits to let Velvet's quick thinking keep her and Weiss Schnee alive at least a little while longer.

Even so, it would not be long before the sheer number of them searching for her caused her incorrigible luck to end.

Then a dark shadow passed overhead, landing silently in a perfectly controlled crouch directly ahead, Blake Belladonna unfolding herself to reveal their doom.

Velvet banked hard, hoping she wasn't making Weiss suffer more than she was already, attempting to put as much distance as possible between her and the-

She was there. Gleaming dark metal that Velvet dodged only at the last second, barely saving Weiss' other arm, attached do a dark hilt and brandished openly by a cold assassin. They stared each other down, Blake's dark mask as intimidating as the wickedly sharp blade she bore, Velvet's heaving form bordering on exhaustion. Impossibly fast glances in every direction revealed the nightmare scenario - she'd herded them. Velvet, for the first time in her life, cursed profusely at her own idiocy. How couldn't she have realized where she was? She'd just passed the 12th bathroom, not the 7th _study_. The painting of _the_ _Demise of the Angels_ , a rather sorrowful painting depicting dozens of winged Faunus falling to the earth in white droves, relatively high up and extraordinarily large decorated the wall behind her. A figure so intimidating even his ancient depicture scared her seemed to glare from under his lightless hood, clad in intricate matte black armour, flying on black wings amidst the dark clouds and dying 'Angels'. It was rather macabre.

Blake, having very little appreciation of art, never so much as noticed the painting. Velvet attempted to meet her gaze, refusing to back down for once in her life, but the exhaustion and the ever-blooming sense of defeat had sapped her strength like no other, and her eyes fell to the burnt carpeting.

She sighed, weary, like someone centuries older. She'd certainly experienced at least partly that much.

"...I know you probably don't care. I know it's no use. I know that it doesn't matter what I say, that you'll want to kill Weiss or kidnap her... but I have to try." She steeled herself. "I'm... I'm begging you. Please. Don't hurt Weiss. She's... she's the only family I have left. She's clearly suffered more than enough for you lunatics' pleasure."

"Weren't you one of the informants?" Blake asked idly, throwing Velvet off-balance.

The Faunus bore a look of guilt only those certainly damned for their sins could muster. "Yes. I was. But I only did it because you guys promised that you would just find someone else if you didn't get what you wanted from me."

It's easy in the heat of the moment to forget certain crucial details. Hard pressed by the situation at hand, and now suddenly attempting to bargain her best friend's safety any way she could, it was easy for Velvet to forget the still form slung over her back, Weiss, had never actually fallen unconscious.

Even though she could make no noise, and barely move her remaining eye, Weiss heard. Every. Word.

 _Velvet... helped them?_

With the genocide of all that was good as a backdrop, the first seeds of something dark and inhuman bloomed in Weiss' heart. As the conversation continued, they burrowed deeper and deeper, the sense of utmost betrayal affecting Weiss just as deeply as the loss of her sister minutes ago. Like a wound left to fester, what would follow would be wholesomely different than what was initially there. In time, it would rot, and the world would once again feel the wrath of a Dark God.

Far away, far beyond any mortal's reach, just such a creature smiles in vicious delight, and laughs darkly at the events sure to come.

Blake's silence unnerved Velvet in a way even the killing instrument in her hand didn't come close to. She'd said her piece, pleaded for Weiss' life, so now all she do was wait and see if she would receive a merciful death.

Blake remained quiet a moment longer, and Velvet knew this was the lead up to the killing blow. She closed her eyes, muttering an apology for all her transgressions, and hoped next time around-

"Go."

...Wait, what?

Velvet's shock was so overpowering all coherent thought left her body. She was left staring at the masked assassin, unsure if she'd heard correctly, before the cat Faunus sighed, the first display of real emotion in quite some time.

"Look. I happen to agree with you, so I'm only going to say this once more." She gestured with her head down a corridor Velvet remembered vaguely led outside. Well, from the third story balcony, but Velvet didn't exactly have the benefit of being choosy. "Go."

Still...

"...Thank you." And Velvet meant it. She wasn't sure why this... girl, though she seemed much older, had decided to help _now_ and not earlier, but felt it would be in bad taste to ask. Even so, she was grateful. She could never make things right, but she could save her best friend's life, and that right now was enough to keep her going.

The darkly clothed creature of the night gave pause. "...You're welcome." From the uneven, definitively strange twang in her voice, it was clear she was unused to the phrase. Nonetheless, Velvet nodded gratefully, adjusted Weiss on her back, still silent as the grave, and ran with the fabled Faunus agility for the life of her best friend.

Blake was locked in place, staring ahead utterly unfocused, her decision playing out in her mind, the ramifications only just beginning to dawn on her. She spent long, long moments in silence before her bowed head slowly rose.

"No. Silence is no longer the answer. I must do something... Adam... is no longer the man I knew he was..."

And so began the tale of Blake the Traitor, an arduous journey no shorter than Weiss' own, culminating in the death of the one who'd saved her. The one she owed everything.

The world had a way of twisting stories like this, from the simple orphan with unnatural golden eyes to the monstrous weaver of shadows - and now, of course, to the betrayer of bonds deeper than blood. A bond of total trust and implicit faith, forged by necessity and fueled by the crimson wave of adversity that followed. When the world had tried to destroy them, they had bonded together emerged stronger.

The machinations of gods are such cruel things. One wonders if they merely build us all up just to languidly enjoy breaking us down. Piece by piece, moral by moral.

...some distance away, Weiss groaned, the lack of action no longer distracting her from the searing agony spreading where her skin once was...

Sibling by sibling.

...Velvet huffed, and muttered quietly "don't worry, we're almost out. Someone can help you... they can help you... if I just get you out..." while her legs grew heavier and her body shook under the strain...

Friend by friend.

By the time they found her, Blake Belladonna still had yet to utter a sound. Still wondering, idly, just how much she'd come to regret her decision to save Weiss Schnee's life.

* * *

 _ **'**_ _ **Kalt'**_ _is the german word for cold. So you know._

 _Man, this took time. Managed to get it done just by listening to the RWBY OST playlist on repeat. Music motivates me, so..._

 _Chapter 2 is now in 2 parts. More exposure, and mostly because we'll have another 6 thousand odd word slog before we hit chapter 4._

 _I'll let this sit on the Recently updated front page for a bit before I begin writing the second second chapter. Then I need to write the fifth chapter. Fuck, what's up with my ordering?_

 ** _(Cancel that, actually. Wrote the fifth chapter before I finished this one. When I finish the second second chapter, I'm just gonna update this like once every day for a while, give it the max exposure it can. Need them reviews, ya see)_**


	3. The Snow: Part II

_Recommended listening: Mirror, Mirror Part 1 + 2 (can be found on YouTube under the username of 'Drevis')_

 **RWBY Backstories:**

 _Porcelain, II, II (part 2 of 2, of ?)_

 _The Snow, II_

 _Greetings ladies and gentlemen of the RWBY fanfiction community!_

 _I'm having too much fun with the 'second second chapter' shtick. Shame it's gotta end. Ah well. A story has to get told, ya know?_

 _Anyway, I won't dally. Enjoy more spiritual nutshots._

* * *

 _She gently traced the edges of the mirror, feeling its lack of warmth. She admired the intricate artwork lining it, tracing the bumps and curves with a morose, yet appreciative hand._

 _"Mirror, mirror..." she whispered to it like a character from fairy tales of old. "Tell me something..."_

 _Slowly, slowly, a crack blossomed along its surface. Miniscule at first, it spread like poison, twisting and warping her reflection. A multi-faced creature stared back at Weiss, each facet of its nature expressed by a different moment in time. Younger, older, dying..._

 _Fractured. Shattered. Broken._

 _"Who's the loneliest of all?"_

 _The mirror shattered, yet didn't, silver glass shards of Weiss' memories falling as it continued to reflect something that was not her._

 _A monster, with a single, gleaming red eye._

 _She and the monster mirrored each other, inadvertently, purposefully - it mattered little. Their interests coincided, for once in their lives, and so neither Weiss nor the dark reflection led as they acted in tandem. Weiss wondered if this would last forever._

 _Then the creature reached, dark, clawed hand clasping the mirror's surface as it smiled slightly too wide._

 _"_ We _are_ _the loneliest of all. So let's make them feel_ our _pain." And with a short, silver rapier grasped in a cybernetic hand, it reached out, grasping her neck with one hand as the other stabbed the blade into her eye, as Winter screamed and screamed and screamed..._

* * *

Weiss stared at her reflection.

So much had happened in such a short span of time - and correspondingly meant there was always so much to do. It left little time for her to come to terms with her new... additions.

The right side of Weiss' body had been subjected to "sustained, high intensity vaporizing Aura radiation." Which was apparently a rather scientific way of expressing the fact that she'd litterally had half her body incinerated, atomized instantly by Adam's attack. Only the miracle of Aura had allowed Weiss' organs to cope with such grievous, supremely fatal damage. The rest she'd attributed to sheer, dumb luck.

She hadn't been unable to move at first, what with the pain of having hundreds if not thousands of microscopic nerve endings suddenly flaring into existence at once. The hospital bedding had been warm, something to drag her back into blissful unconsciousness again and again as she lapsed in and out. The dreams had been horrific orgies of blood and violence, splattered brains and blood, taking place in a world of frozen darkness. Screaming faces, reaching hands, desperate pleas of the damned to be saved. And from the twisted tilt of a sideways world, Weiss Watched.

She watched, unable to act. Too weak, too feeble, too useless...

Until one time, when the dark clutches of nightmares could hold her no longer, she awoke and stayed that way.

 _When they greeted her with careful, sympathetic expressions, Weiss' still foggy and confused mind already understood that something was wrong. Something imperceptible had been shifted. Something minute had been changed. Indiscernible, besides a simple feeling of dread._

Weiss clasped her skull, bundling fistfuls of hair as she gently rocked back and forth on her bed. When did she get here? She didn't know. She'd closed her eyes, and still she was staring at her hideous reflection. At the creature she'd become.

 _Half her body. Half. Not a single limb, nor organ, nor other extraneous part._ Half _._

 _Half of who she was, her literal being, had become-_

-this. Weiss listened to the sound of servos easing along her blood flow, the series of valves and monitored pressure keeping her weakened heart from expiring.

 _Plastic. Metal. Plastic._

 _Even though it was all metal, it still felt like plastic. As though her life's situation had metastasized all over the right side of her body. Metal fingers, metal hands, metal limbs - and a decidedly metal face, replete with metal eye, that whirred with unseen machinations of disgusting necessity. It felt vile. A violation of her very person, becoming something that was_ not her _._

Weiss cried. She didn't even know why anymore, the onslaught of emotion and memories enough to simply _break_ her. Render her into less than a person. Merely a sobbing mess, desperate for something she would never, ever have again.

 _They'd won. It was as utterly terrifying a notion as she'd expected it to be. Plastic. Plastic. She'd become plastic. She paid no heed to the raised voices of the doctors as she fell deeper into her despair, the chilling realization that whatever she was, she was not Weiss Schnee anymore._

 _Tock. Tock. Tock._

 _And yet, never tick._

Screaming and screaming as the memories continued, tearing her apart like a vicious beast. Her artificial lungs and throat would never tire, letting her scream to her heart's desire, as she suffered an agony entirely non-physical. Of wounds cut deep, that would never, ever heal, but most certainly continue to bleed.

 _She ran. She'd leapt from the bed, surprising herself with her own agility despite being in such a weakened state, and ran aimlessly. Desperate to somehow go further than the world would be willing to follow, to outrun the plastic grafted to her skin._

 _Naturally, in the process of seeking salvation, she found her father instead, stepping out from an important looking office. Who barely even noted his daughter's existence as she suddenly stopped dead, lone human eye wide and pleading._

She cried, because pain was all she knew.

 _He understood the question without bothering to levy more than a tertiary glance at her. Still, he begrudgingly rotated his attention, clearly having more important things to do than abide by his grieving daughter's wishes._

 _" **Winter is dead.** " He said only, firmly. Weiss' pleading expression fell away, replaced by heart-rending grief. As his daughter sunk to her knee, another broken doll manufactured by the Schnee Dust Corporation, Kalt Schnee huffed dismissively and walked straight past. Never again looking at the _weakness _his blood had somehow managed to spawn._

Weiss gently stroked the mirror, feeling its lack of warmth. Hadn't she been on her bed, crying her heart out? How'd she get here? Was that just fantasy? A memory? What was this, then? Weiss never considered the ability to differ between reality and fantasy much of a privilege... but now, she would do anything to have it back.

How ironic that she'd once lost herself in escapist fantasies of knights and princesses to stave off her torment... and now, her own imagination was the source of her pain.

"Mirror, mirror, tell me something..." she sang, uncaring of the consequences, and inwardly grateful that they hadn't taken this from her, at least.

All those thoughts and memories of motherly tones enchanting her with tales of good defeating evil, of the hero overcoming all...

"Why am I the loneliest of all?" But as always, as with everything of metal and glass and plastic in this house, it would not help her.

...only to find out the world did not care for such childish fantasies. That evil could sometimes, even regularly, win. Good people died, because the world respected one thing, and one thing alone - power.

The smiling too-wide mirror agreed.

A spark of something ignited in Weiss' mind - a notion of an idea, the barest of thoughts. The beginning of a plan. Weiss gazed into the mirror once more, seeing the stark contrast of black metal and pale skin, two halves of a broken whole. Her cybernetic eye whirred as she became lost in thought, unconsciously seating herself at her desk, fingers interlaced before her calculative expression.

The mirror continued to smile as Weiss schemed, an empire already forming in her mind.

In that room, in the familiar quiet of brooding minds plotting dark deeds, the Gods were powerless to stop it.

The birth of another dark God. Unleashed onto Remnant to exact vengeance and pain.

* * *

 _It is not the prerogative of dysfunctional minds to be... chronological. For Weiss Schnee, the weeks following Winter's death would prove to be some of the darkest parts of her life, as harrowing and traumatic as the experiences predating it. Even then, times as dark - if not darker - would be sure to follow, in her descent into a pit from which no mortal ever returns._

 _Some call it insanity. Other's call it perspective._

 _She does not remember most of it, only, perhaps, the parts that affected her the most. The rest is dulled into great swathes of tears and agony, curled up into a ball and crying over her lost sister. The few times she managed to function, however, would prove to be her most character defining yet. Great plans were set into motion - or perhaps merely continued? - by Weiss' actions, some by herself, others by beings far beyond her current understanding._

 _These events would shape Weiss Schnee into the dark God the God's eventually see her becoming. It would also mark, proper, the first time a mortal had truly gained the eye of a God in almost a century..._

 _They say every story of good overcoming evil begins with a hero._

 _But what of a story of blood?_

* * *

Weiss was impressed by the sculptor's work.

Having only imagery and descriptions to work with, Winter's new head was almost impossible to distinguish from the original. Considering they had only days to construct it from scratch, their work ethic or their talent must've been unbelievable, perhaps both. Another distinct possibility was that her father had personally overviewed its construction. His presence usually had an... energizing effect on people. Mostly to make them comply with his demands then run for their lives.

Days... or was it a week? A month? It felt longer. Weiss could spend an eternity staring at the unnaturally reflective, peaceful expression on Winter's face, mainly because she couldn't imagine herself functioning otherwise. Time was... in a word... meaningless. She'd spent an entire day staring at the featureless wall of her room recently, which had miraculously escaped harm, most likely due to the fact no single fire could possibly incinerate the entire Schnee Manor. She remembered the time Winter had suggested wallpaper to personalize the room, and the utter giddiness that came with the thought. Dust, what had she even wanted? Unicorns? Snowflakes? Something equally childish and flamboyant? She couldn't remember, and not that it mattered. Their father only had to vaguely dissuade the notion for it never to be given life again. Even if the wallpaper itself was lost to her, Weiss remembered the disappointment clearly. Now... she could not imagine a life without the sterile white walls. Without the cold glass and unfeeling plastic.

The Dollhouse. her prison, was all she'd ever known. Devoid of love, life, and warmth. Just pieces of plastic expected to click into place. The one thing that kept her sane was the notion of escape, that between the walls, there was some kind of crack, worked over by others in decades past. And Winter was helping her, inch by inch, slowly feel out the cracks, finding ways to express herself even when utterly immobile, locked in place.

But as she looked down, and saw Winter's plastic face, she realized a plastic coffin was the only escape from the plastic house. The only _true_ escape, where nothing was decided for her. Like she'd once confessed to her dead mother so long ago, the thought that perhaps if she stayed here long enough, control over even her own demise would be taken away. Winter's life was already decided for her. Valedictorian of Atlas Academy, eventual leader of her own Special Operations Unit, to be wed with one of the sons from the Lotus syndicate in Mistral, and to bear more sons and daughters she would mold into the Schnee image. It was the expected outcome from her, Weiss, their father, their mother, their grandfather, their grandmother... the Schnee family was one of stagnation. The same semblance, the same people, the same mindsets - _tradition_ , they called it. Weiss likened it to the automatic responses one gets from pressing buttons on factory-assembled mass-produced Dolls. Tradition. Tradition.

Tradition.

And the one thing Winter had decided for herself, in the end? When she should've had a lifetime spent outside the plastic walls? To die. To die for her useless, powerless sister, that couldn't so much as breath without her big sister to hold her close. To tell her that even without her, without anything to live for, without hope of escape, she could still be herself.

 _Though,_ she thought, staring at her metal _plastic_ limbs, _clearly_ _not for much longer._

Dust, was she crying _again_?

"Winter..." she said in a breathless sob. "Winter... Winter... _Winter_..." She choked, and instead unleashed her sorrow with yet more tragic screams of loss and grief, a child forced to suffer far too much, mature far too fast; a Doll, broken beyond repair.

The plastic had set in. Winter gave no response, as perfectly immaculate and inhuman as they wanted her to be. They won. They'd won. The beating heart of hope and dreams Winter had encouraged, attempted to make flourish, was left with a bundle of white flowers - roses, shaped like snowflakes, beside her in death. The last of Innocence dripped down onto a face that could not absorb moisture, immune to emotion inside and out. Hollow.

Weiss arose from that coffin as though she had been the corpse inside, living again in undeath - unfeeling, cold, and heartless. Eyes the colour and texture of frost looked out at the world as though for the first time.

"Weiss?"

The Schnee heiress rolled her knuckles.

"Hello, Velvet." Weiss didn't bother to turn, instead continuing to admire Winter's perfect face, careful not to give anything away. Plastic, she wondered, or porcelain? She'd only been assuming before. The world would be so cruel, she didn't doubt, as to make her plastic - though it might have been more economic to use porcelain. "You came."

"A-as soon as I could!" She squeaked. Weiss scowled uncharacteristically.

"Good. I had something I wished to... inform you." The darkest parts of her heart almost sang with glee at the deception, a feeling like the Spider nearing the dying fly unknowingly caught in its web blooming within her.

With Winter, Weiss had never been anything even remotely close to sadistic, the nearest thing being an almost masochistic obsession with self-improving. Though that might have more to do with the fact she was, and probably never will be, good enough. No Glyph could reverse time. Well, not yet...

"I-I do too." Velvet was visibly nervous, idly writhing her hands and almost hopping in place.

Without Winter, it was like Weiss had become an entirely different person. Her rage flowed freely, causing her to snap at the slightest of transgressions, and be much more unforgiving as well. She recognized this, understood this, with an almost analytical, detached state of mind - of someone from the outside looking in.

Even now, she could imagine herself crying at the foot of Winter's coffin, pleading with herself not to do this. The cast-off innocence and hopeful, lonely little girl, fused into one.

"No." She declared quietly to the sobbing mess. It stared back with pleading, bloodshot eyes. "We are going to do this. And you will not stop me."

"W-Weiss? Who are you talking to?"

"No one." The sobbing girl was, after all, not something Velvet could see. Existing only in metaphor, mostly likely since she was going completely insane. It didn't surprise her, honestly. The human psyche could only take so much. Probably lying in wait to manifest since the death of her mother...

Weiss turned, a ghost of a smile on her face. Without the eyes to go with it, however, it appeared more psychotic than welcoming. Velvet took a step back.

"W-Weiss?" She whispered, legs quivering in terror as her best friend neared. Her Faunus instincts likely sensed her intent, and Weiss was once again thankful for their friendship. She'd never had gotten so close otherwise.

(Weiss screamed, and screamed, and screamed, but Velvet could not hear her. Nobody could hear her. Not even herself)

Weiss reached out, and though Velvet flinched at first, the hand only stroked her face tenderly, fondly. A correspondingly warm expression was on Weiss' face, watching the tension drain from her friend, and with her other hand outsretched, Velvet immediately launched herself into the hug.

(Weiss continued to scream, even if all that came out was silence, begging and pleading for herself to lower Myrtenaster, to stop her from making another mistake.)

Though Velvet was hesitant to admit it at first, even with everything that had gone on, Weiss' hug was unusually... cold. Platonic. Unfeeling. Her instincts screamed once more, _dangerdangerdanger_.

Except it was far too late.

(" _Come, let me clutch thee."_ )

Weiss maintained her fond expression even as Velvet gasped, blood spurting from her mouth over her shoulder. More spurts of blood burst from Velvet's chest, around the blade of a sharply thrust Myrtenaster, splattering onto the cold flooring of the soon-to-be funeral procession. Miraculously, not a single drop of blood stained Weiss' outfit, even as she thrust Myrtenaster once more into her best friend's ribcage, piercing her heart down to the Dust chamber.

"I know you killed my sister." Weiss confessed calmly as the blood poured and life drained from Velvet's eyes.

(Weiss _screamed_ and screamed and screamed and screamed, as though Myrtenaster had been buried in her chest instead. Tearing out hair and screaming until blood frothed from her mouth, she continued wailing as the endless sorrow grew even deeper, hollowing her out, heart and soul, with a bloody dagger.)

"When you pleaded with the White Fang leader's associate for my life, I heard. Every. Word." It was impossible to know if Velvet's shock was from the confession or the sudden betrayal, but Weiss liked to fantasize the terrified gleam in her eyes was the result of her being found out, like the filthy _traitor_ that she was. "I could have let you be executed with the rest of the traitors... but no. I wanted to do this _myself_. You helped the White Fang in, through the servant's entrances. You let them kill my sister. You... _used_ me. Just like the rest of them."

"W... W... Weiss..." Velvet gurgled, the blood already filling her lungs. The overflow spewed from her mouth.

Even so, the sheer hurt and betrayal was enough to painfully twist Weiss' heart, to wrench whatever little empathy she still possessed from her. This... this was not how it was supposed to go. Instead of the vicious satisfaction she should be feeling for killing the one who'd killed her sister, Weiss felt...

Velvet vomited blood all over Weiss, immediately drenching her in red. Her watery, shining tears mixed with the blood still flowing from her body, even as it began to abate, her pierced heart slowing to a stop. The look of betrayal forever more etched into her best friend's face was burned into Weiss' mind, as disturbing and wrong as the death of her sister. Finally, the Faunus completely collapsed onto Weiss, unable so much as to move, her pitiful breathing the only sign she was alive.

Barely.

"W... W... W..." She was trying, but the blood in her lungs and throat rendered words into either gurgles or quiet gasps for breath. Spewing yet more blood one last time, Velvet gathered the breath to whisper in Weiss' ear.

"I... I'm... sor... ry..."

Velvet exhaled deeply, her heart stopping. Then, the blood making Weiss' clothes frictionless, she slid off and impacted the floor with a wet thud.

A look crossed Weiss' face. Not one of shock, nor realization, nor shame, nor horror, or even regret. Instead, something fundamentally different passed through her body. A feeling of innate wrongness, the simple understanding of what she'd just done. Something words could not convey, nor a mere look. Weiss slowly, slowly, slowly, stared down at the blood on her hands. At the blood on her legs, her chest, her arms, her weapon...

Soaked in the life essence of her best friend.

So what words could not convey, raw emotion could. The same screams Weiss had uttered for hours on end mere days ago, save perhaps more intense from the immediacy of the event, ripped from her throat. Guttural, inhuman screeching - no explanation. No thought. No words. Just noise, as endless tears of sorrow poured out, like the blood from Velvet's body. A silver rose hung from her neck, shining as brightly as the glistening tears falling from her eyes.

("We're best friends, aren't we?")

Just the innate feeling of wrongness, and the girl who'd finally, finally, lost it completely.

(The little girl watches - it is all she's ever known. From the window of a secluded room in her prison of plastic and glass, she watches the villain scream out her very soul, as though to tear it out like a cancerous growth. She watches as the screaming continues, on and on and on, screaming and screaming and screaming, so noisy, so very noisy... she wished it would be quiet, just for a minute. The screaming is in her head, refusing to quiet, not letting her think. She doesn't know what to do, lost and confused, so she watches. She watches. And watches. And watches.)

(It is all she's ever known.)

* * *

 _Heroes fall._

 _It is an unavoidable fact, the consequence of all actions, the only possible end result. Everyone dies eventually. But some heroes outlive their demise, and become something much, much worse than what they initially arose to defeat. Weiss was given exceptionally little choice in who she would be, what she'd become, and thus she never had so much as the opportunity to make the fatal error - to betray what she stood for. No. Like most things in life, it was a choice between bad and worse._

 _Then the decision to betray what she stood for came around anyway, a cruel twist on the traditional fall from grace, and so from Weiss' young hands any chance to become something more than what she was called was ruthlessly taken away, a Doll turned monster. A cruelty beyond any measurable act of spite - to have deprived Weiss of a future that was not forged in pain, to decide for her an oath of vengeance._

 _And so it comes to this. Weiss is broken, hanging on the barest notion of what she believes she must do - or else she has no reason to live. Her mistakes press down on her as heavily and overbearingly as entire mountains stacked atop her shoulders, enough weight to crush lesser beings to less than dust. The encroaching darkness, coming from every direction - even within - threaten to drown her in the black. To absolve her of these horrors, these monumental weights, there is but one direction she can move._

 _Forward. Through blood and bone, enemies and allies, friends and family. Overcoming any obstacle, simply because_ she must. _After the sacrifices she'd already made, Weiss had long since lost any ability to turn back. Both the opportunity, and the willingness. Everything in her life had to be solely focused on achieving her goals, for without them she would be no more, and thus drown in the sea of faceless black._

 _It is like a music box. Playing a single melody, even as the world falls apart around it. She can only sing one song - her own. And just like a music box, one day, the music ends - hidden beneath a closed lid - and it is never opened ever again. The music box will lay silent, regardless of whether or not it has finished its song._

 _From that music box drifts Weiss' melody, and hers alone. They may own her, mind, body and soul, but they will never take her voice. It was her memories, her emotions, her suffering within the Dollhouse - and somehow, that made it priceless. Irreplaceable. Before they take her very sense of self, she would die, a hundred million thousand times over. And though it was not a realization Weiss would have for a long, long time, it still exists as an act tantamount to godly defiance - proof, perhaps, that their control is not absolute. A threat to their rule. Weiss would rise above the suffering and hate, and emerge all the stronger._

 _If the Gods do not kill her first, that is._

* * *

She knows what he wants.

She does not know when he will exactly act, if he will be bothered to wait or if he will act immediately. He might even use her grief as a excuse to try it. Or maybe he'd just take it as always, like everything else in his life. It was how he'd gotten her mother, apparently. He'd probably apply the same method...

Had her mother even been happy, with him? It was a sudden thought that plagued Weiss as she prepared, Winter's letter still opened on her desk and stained with the tears of a woman broken but persevering, the fresher stains being Weiss' contribution. She'd found it hidden in Winter's room, in the gap between her drawers, a space only the two of them had known about. Mostly since Weiss had once hidden sweets in there... she was far too stressed and emotionally unstable to blush, but the fact that she'd once thought it was okay to leave sweets for weeks at a time, well...

She digressed. Thoughts of her early childhood were hardly appropriate when attempting to contemplate the finer points of dethroning her father.

It was an eventuality, really. Schnee 'tradition' meant that the heir would take the throne by force, defeating their elder to prove the Schnee blood they bore was stronger. A rather sick and twisted tradition, one harbored by the family for centuries. Idle whispers said her father had come into power by killing his own father while he slept, a move that sounded so very Kalt Schnee that Weiss did not doubt the rumor for a second.

Still. The anxious anticipation steadily driving her crazy, Weiss gazed forlornly out the window. Had her mother ever been... happy, in general? She knew what her father had done to her, so at first it seemed like an especially resound 'no'. Plus, the Dollhouse had a way of draining the warmth out of anything, even for someone so naturally kind-hearted as her mother - the light in her life that Weiss and Winter brought could easily have been dimmed by the plastic walls. Whatever it would take to break you, the Dollhouse would throw a little bit less. Slightly, slightly less. Maintaining a point of contention as it boiled ever hotter, like the instance of death prolonged over the course of decades. Until, of course, you fall apart like shattered glass.

Velvet's blood gleamed a shiny crimson all over Weiss' body, her _hands_ , even though both were completely clean - she'd scrubbed more than hard enough, surely. She closed her eyes, fighting back against the screams and the doubts and the heavy, crushing guilt. Did she even know the Fox Faunus girl's name? Her father's? Anything about where Velvet came from, asides from the fact that she was a slave? Did Winter know she was as loved and appreciated as she deserved to be? Had her mother?

What if... what if... Weiss was wrong? That she really was just a failure? What if she'd killed her best friend and let her sister die because Weiss Schnee was nothing short of a complete failure? Failure. Failure, failure failure failure-

Weiss audibly hissed, driving her hands into her skull to stave off the voices. She already had enough of a loose grip on sanity as it was. She couldn't afford this. Not now. Not when she needed to be fully functioning, or perhaps even more, to survive.

 _Please. Please. I'll fall apart later. I just need to do this now._ But she'd killed them. Them both. It was her fault. It was always her fault. If only Weiss Schnee did not exist, if the Dollhouse had but one fewer dolls to display...

Then maybe it would not feel as empty as it was, devoid of real people. A construction of plastic for people of plastic. Then maybe when Weiss looked around herself, at the home of plastic, she would not find so many dolls out of place - no doll of warm plastic gazing at her with a loving expression, no brightly smiling face stealing away precious seconds of interaction with her during a busy day. Then maybe the dolls would not be lying forgotten outside, broken beyond repair into so many pieces of plastic.

The owner of the Dollhouse lording over the construction of plastic, uncaring of his broken puppets. Focusing his efforts to weave the strings into the only puppet left uncontrolled, the cracked little girl.

(Somewhere on the dim fringes of Weiss mind, she realized her sudden mental detachment from reality. The doll could not respond, however, for it was but plastic, and trapped utterly within the plastic house. There was little to do but let it run its course)

The Doll, affixed in place, could not move as the strings slowly threaded through her, piercing her heart and soul. She would be his, even if it took a lifetime. With only plastic limbs, the Doll could not fight back - the same as it had always been, her entire life. She was powerless in here, fighting him on his terms, her silent screams fading into the black and the strings burrowed deeper and deeper...

...Weiss' head lifted from the desk, the plastic walls falling away to reveal marble ones, the other dolls surrounding her fading into memories. All at once, the plan clicked into place, (like plastic).

She was powerless in the Dollhouse, living by his rules. Playing his games - that was how he maintained his power. Like chess, in which he had all the pieces and she had none. And though she could not leave, she could flip the board.

She would not wait and hide. She refused to remain terrified of that man, like she had for so many years.

It was time for Weiss Schnee to stop simply being a Doll, and start acting like the Schnee Heir that she was born to be. He wanted tradition?

Then she would gut him on his own throne of power.

* * *

 _Perhaps Weiss' tale may be one of cyclical nature. Of how, now that she has risen at least somewhat beyond the fear and restraints that bound her to her father's bidding, she will turn and do onto him exactly what he has done onto her. It is **Human nature** , after all_ _._

 _But it is my hope that Weiss will distance herself from the cycle, that she will prove Humans can be more than the sum of another's actions. Though, I suppose... she's already proven that, hasn't she? In going to dethrone her father, she has become what he always wanted._

 _A worthy heir._

 _Is there any hope left for her, then? I am not often wrong when I judge a person's character, and I wholeheartedly believe Weiss is everything her sister thought of her - and more. She is much, much more than what anyone thinks of her - an incredibly courageous, humble soul doing the best she can. That she can appreciate victory in a manner long forgotten to us all; in a way that requires a smaller, more honest soul. To mend a world so broken, the only option that makes any sense is to try and fix it. And yet even that is just another facet of_ ** _Human nature._**

 _There is a reason the expression about good intentions exists, after all. Weiss will pave every step of her descent into Hell with well-meant thoughts and acts, until she finds herself so impossibly deep, she will look back the way she came only to find darkness. The only thing left for her to do is what she set out for, what she sacrificed even her very soul for. Her humanity would compel her, just as her eventual lack of it will. A weary traveler that had wandered the road for far too long to even consider turning back._

 _Perhaps it was foolish to have hope at all, in retrospect. Perhaps my hope had stemmed from a latent desire to see the good in people, to believe we can be more than what we, or others, think of us. I of all people should know how deeply and how utterly good intentions may drag you under, like a teenaged crush, or one's first love - to change you as though by pure magic, so utterly dismissive of your own logic and morals. To make excuses, to try and fit everything together in some manner more befitting of a perfectly crafted fairy tale than hard, cruel, unforgiving reality. After the fires fade, I am sorry to say, there lies no one to take the blame. Save of course oneself, for buying into the lie so deep._

 _Regret. How bitter an emotion must be to be so distinguished? How painful it must be to be so iconic? So well defined? All the things that never were, and even the things that are. It has driven men to ruin and to salvation, to acts of good and evil. And yet the type of monsters we would be if we honestly did not understand error, if we did not realize our mistakes, helping only ourselves... a thought too horrific to contemplate._

 _It leaves one wondering, then, what the ever enigmatic Weiss Schnee will do. In her bloody reign as Queen of the Schnee Empire, how far will Weiss go to avenge the ones she loved? Will she truly become the Dark God the Gods believe she will? The same type of cold-blooded monster the Witch relishes in being?_

 _I am not often wrong when I judge a person's character. Perhaps Weiss will fulfil every aspiration her father had ever dreamed of - to continue the same cold-hearted tradition that he had._

 _Or, perhaps, Weiss Schnee will do the one thing even the God's do not expect - to simultaneously prove everything they said about her dead wrong._

 _Time will tell if Remnant's latest force for change shall abide by her own doctrine. If history is to repeat, however, as it always has, then I am only fearful of what comes next. Of the long night born from the eventual conflict between the broken doll, and the strange little girl..._

* * *

All in all, Winter's funeral took two weeks to organize - two weeks Weiss spent in the most intense preparation of her life, spending entire days in the training room to perfect a single strike. When fueled by an indescribably otherworldly drive - a concoction of grief, guilt, regret, and raw determination - she made incredible progress, much more than she had ever made during 'tutoring'.

The manor, having suffered not-insignificant damage, needed to be undergo comprehensive repairs if only for the sake of the attendants. Some of the many rooms had to be allotted for such and such aspect of the funeral, such as the viewing, the conversing, and the eventual burial.

The attendants being, of course, those who had sensed the opportunity presented before them to try and leverage a grieving father into a better business position. Weiss had no doubt these people, with their freshly skinned Faunus-fur-lined coats (which since the Faunus Rebellion had been declared illegal under International Law, though few seemed to care) and inherited degenerate practices, were every bit as morally bankrupt as her father. She only wondered how stupid they had to be to possibly believe Kalt Schnee would ever grieve over what he deemed a failure. Though now, she wondered, if that particular morsel of information was actually public or not.

All of this mattered very little as she marched towards his throne, seeing him languidly strewn across it with a swirling glass of blood red wine. He exerted his power over these people merely by being present, and without regard. Sometimes, Weiss wondered if the bastard even remembered he was not in fact a King, but the CEO of the largest corporation in the world of Remnant. Though, she supposed, there was next to nothing to separate the two. The crowd started to gather as knowledge of Weiss' intent seemed to spread like a visible rippling in the festivities, as many different conniving faces bearing all shades of colours that certainly were not always black watched on like vultures. Her feet halted at the foot of the throne, eyes locked onto the King of the Schnee Kingdom with burning determination, gleaming Myrtenaster at her side.

"Oh yes, there's my little Executor." He slurred, arrogant enough to let himself fall into an alcoholic stupor even with so many enemies present. This was, after all, the heart of his power - his home, his throne. No one was foolish enough to try it. "Slightly overzealous, don't you think? To kill one of the traitors in such a bloody manner, alone? Especially in front of Winter. My, if she could see you now..." He knew what she was here for. He was content to crush her little dreams of desperation as he would any other challenger for the throne, not even bothering to pay her his full attention, idly toying with the wine glass. "I wonder what the whore would've said."

The levelness of Weiss' head was immediately in question, rage brimming in her eyes as her father continued to lord over the procession.

"You know, I got you a present. To celebrate the purging of the Schnee blood." He said with a smile that sickened her, a quiet dread ebbing into her stomach. He pulled a small box from his pocket, and threw it down to her. Weiss' cybernetic hand caught it easily, and she immediately turned it over, inspecting it for the slightest hint of deceit. A music box, it would seem. Actually, she recognized this music box... this was-

Her blood ran cold. Weiss, hoping against all hope, slowly opened the music box, letting the soft music of her mother's lullaby spill out, something she'd lost years ago. Except it was not Weiss' mother's voice that came from the music box.

It was her own.

" _Mirror, mirror, tell me something..."_

Her song, sung in the dead forest, the day Velvet had assured her of their friendship. Something only she could own, something only she could sing. Her heart and soul, poured into words. Weiss turned the memory over and over in her head, remembering the certainty she felt that no one was watching.

" _Why am I the loneliest of all?_ "

But someone was. And now, even her very soul was his property, like the Devil collecting his due. This was not the only copy, she was certain. He wanted proof of his dominion over her. He would, _would_ have more.

The muscles in Weiss arm flexed, attempted to close the music box, to deny that he would truly stoop so low. And yet the look on his face was undeniable - self-assured, total, pure _victory -_ and the broken voice was impossible to ignore.

" _Tell me who's the loneliest of all..."_

"Tell me, Weiss Schnee..." He laughed, ugly and demeaning. "Why are you the loneliest of all? What has made you such a failure? I believe some things are simply... genetic. That you must have drawn too much from your mother's impure heritage, and not the Schnee blood you clearly are not worthy of."

 _"Mirror, mirror, tell me something..."_

"Even Winter was capable of summoning, and yet you barely maintain control over your semblance. Your aura is miniscule, your talent - laughable. Frankly, if there was anyone we should have buried, it was you. I-"

"I read Winter's letter." Weiss declared, voice devoid of emotion. Her gaze had yet to be drawn from the music box. "I know what you did to Winter. That you thought you should... try again, with a new set of heirs, with someone of at least mostly pure blood."

"And?"

"Winter told me one that, in the event that something happened to her, you would logically turn to me. Use me and as you did our mother, your own sister-" Venom entered Weiss' words.

 _"Tell me who's the loneliest of all..."_

"I know that you resented mother for always being stronger than you, and were secretly glad that it never came down to a contest of power over who would hold the throne. You were the disappointment, growing up neglected in favor of your big sister. The day you were declared acting head of the Schnee family, after murdering your parents in their sleep, was the very same day you lost your virginity from raping your own sister. Winter found your journal. She told me how to find it too." She presented a small ornate white book from the lapels of her dress, music box weaving music in the background. Then, she dropped it at the foot of his throne, letting the proof that he was not God lay there for him to torment himself over the existence of.

"It was... enlightening."

The wine glass shattered in Kalt Schnee's grip, visibly shaking with rage, flowing blood mixing with the spilt wine.

"You... you little _whore_..."

"And I know, that above all else, there was one thing you could not stand, one thing that terrified you."

 _"Fear of what's inside me,"_

"You were afraid of the possibility that Winter would turn on you, possessing far more skill than you ever had. So you informed the White Fang how to infiltrate our defenses-"

"Quiet! You lying little whore! QUIET!" He gestured madly to those present. "Stop her! Shut her up! She's a lying little whore, just like my sister!" But they would do no such thing, too content to watch him slowly fall apart. The guards, the servants, his subjects - they left him to die. Even the robots, programmed not to assist in the harm of any of person possessing Schnee blood, would not help. He was alone.

 _"Tell me - can a heart be turned to stone?" (_ The music quietened, the soft sounds of the dead forest playing instead, building up to another, more determined verse much later. Sung not so much in sorrow, as in the desperate hope of escape.)

"-disguising several of your personal guard as agents of the White Fang, had them threaten several of the servants, and then executed them - all to cover your tracks." Weiss announced succinctly. She snarled, utterly enraged. " _You_ are the source of our problems! _You_ killed Winter! The False King, Kalt Schnee!"

A murmuring swept through the crowd, marveling at the turned tables. Kalt desperately looked about, watching his enemies, his subjects whisper about his foolishness, his _weakness_. At being shown up by a 11 year old girl, and his daughter no less.

"Shut up!" He screeched like a cornered animal, panting and sweating as the whispering voices all fused into one in his ears, growing unbearably loud. "All of you! Shut UP!"

And now, to deliver the killing blow.

"And your aura? Your intimidating presence?" She gestured to the Schnee Family cane at his hip, a heirloom that had lasted thousands of years. "Not even yours. A byproduct of being wielded by some of the strongest of Remnant's warriors for centuries in a row. You are a false tyrant, a child wielding power far beyond his control."

"I said _be QUIET!_ " He shouted, retrieving his weapon - an ornate silver and white flintlock pistol - from his jacket and levelling it at Weiss. The Schnee family heir stared down the barrel undeterred, her glare running along his arm until it reached his eyes. He jumped, pistol clattering from his grasp onto the marble flooring as he trembled like an infant child.

Weiss did not glare at him with the eyes of a child. Rather, with the eyes of something the Gods feared, the Gods dreaded. Cold and dark like black water flash frozen into ice, wicked and intimidating. The eyes of another who had challenged the throne, millennia ago, in an age long since past.

"That's IT!" Kalt's trembling hands barely managed to grasp his cane, and he almost fell when he stumbled out of his throne - nonetheless he stood, levying his cane at Weiss. "You question my rule, little girl?! You talk as though you know everything, when you know _nothing_! You do not how... how _hard_ it was to always be second, to always come up short! To always be a failure!"

Perhaps the most crippling irony of the situation present was not that Weiss, in fact, did very much know - nor that they were actually identical in upbringing. No, perhaps the greatest irony here, was that Weiss sympathized. She read the journal and came away hating him all the more, but now, seeming him fall apart so quickly - so _easily -_ only filled her with pity. Not even he had escaped the Dollhouse, instead only becoming a plastic king seated on a plastic throne.

"But that matters little, now. After I beat you to within an inch of your life, I will force you to bear my heirs. Over and over and over, until you are even more _familiar_ with me than your whore of a mother was!"

Then, Kalt Schnee unsheathed the true Heirloom of the Schnee family from within the cane, metal ringing-

" _Eisdrache,_ " he whispered to the silver blade inscribed with humming, ice-blue dragons along its edge. Unleashed, the weapon's presence was as intimidating as the creature it was named after - an ice dragon, loud and monstrous. It successfully cowed most of the audience in a single glance, unconsciously stepping back as one. Weiss, still bearing a glare that gave the Gods pause, stood resolute. The music box was gently lowered to the ground, her song gaining intensity as it sang of a troubled, but determined soul.

 _"Mirror, mirror, what's behind you?"_

Roaring bestially, Kalt Schnee leapt forward with a powerful though formless thrust. Weiss sidestepped the blow and unsheathed Myrtenaster, all in one movement, bringing it elegantly to bear against her enraged attacker. They clashed, the Princess herself versus the Dragon that kept her prisoner.

 _"Save me from the things I see!"_

It would be a short battle. _Eisdrache_ pulled back and launched itself forward again, bouncing off her guard. Weiss's retaliatory strike slashed Kalt's arm wide open, blood pouring forth, and pushing the advantage she began a flurry of perfectly executed attacks - the same set of movements her sister had used the day she died.

 _"I can keep it from the world,"_

Kalt was just a boy, wielding a weapon of great power. While the weapon was fearsome, it was little better than a metal rod in his clumsy hands as he attempted block after block. Weiss speared through, cutting him again and again, wide splashes of blood spraying through the air as she made short work of his abysmal defense.

 _"Why won't you let me hide from me?"_

She was forcing him back, back up the steps to his throne, cutting off all avenues of escape. Caging him like the wild beast that he was. His feet caught as he stumbled over his own throne, _Eisdrache_ deftly taken from his grip by a single slash. Leaving him at the mercy of a silver blade, and correspondingly it's wielder.

She would take no prisoners.

Weiss Schnee, her face the very definition of determined - eyes ablaze, brow pulled taut, teeth bared - reared Myrtenaster back only to thrust it forward with a zealous shout. Straight into her father's chest, and gutting him on his own throne of power. Just like she'd promised.

 _"Mirror, mirror... tell me something..."_

The music quietened, her father's suit steadily being dyed red, Weiss panting and heaving from the brief yet intense battle. With such seemingly little effort in comparison to the task at hand, she won. She was a prisoner no longer. Covered in her father's blood, she turned to face the crowd.

 _"...Who's the loneliest of all?"_

The audience, enraptured by the event, waited for so much as the slightest affirmation before daring to draw breath. Weiss left Myrtenaster where it was, her father weakly gasping for breath as he attempted to pull it out, and failed spectacularly. Instead, she let her fingers wrap around the ornate hilt of _Eisdrache_ , her birthright, the ancient Atlesian weapon of Dragonslaying - the act that legends said to have earned her family's original reverence. And now they sell colourful powder... my, how times change...

"My name is Weiss Schnee," she announced to those gathered. A declaration, she figured, was in order. "As is Schnee tradition, I have challenged my father for the throne, and _won_. It is _I_ who now controls the Schnee Dust Corporation, and all its affiliates. My first declaration as Queen is..." She snarled. " _Get out of my home._ All of you. I'll deal with you lot later. My sister deserves to rest in peace."

And so as things wound to a close, with disgruntled guests to force out in droves, a throne room to clean and redecorate, a new corpse to dispose of, and an older one to bury, Weiss gazed back with contempt. Watching the life slowly drain out of her father filled her with nothing but pity and remorse. Pity for the person who had lived exactly as she had, save perhaps that her mother hadn't acted for him as Winter did for her, and remorse for the conclusion. A deep sorrow, wordless but painful, that things had to turn out like this.

 _Eisdrache_ suddenly burned in her grasp, like dry ice, and Weiss hissed as the weapon fell with a clatter. Oh, right, something about a worthy wielder with only true conviction in their heart? She resolved to use it later, when she understood it better. Who knows what a weapon of such power would do to what it deems an unworthy wielder? Weiss unconsciously eyed her father's hunched over form. 'Oder in der Ruine enden' - 'or end in ruin'. Perhaps the legend was more self-fulfilling than she'd initially thought...

Still. How to carry out a weapon she could not hold, and obviously could not just leave here? Weiss sighed. This might take some time.

* * *

In an empty room, the music box finally choked out the final line of its only song.

 _"I'm... the loneliest... of... all..."_

As the little girl on the other end fell apart, like a broken doll, and cried.

* * *

 _Anyone appreciate the Shakespeare quote? No? Okay. I'll just be over here reading real books, none of those Asian comics you weebs enjoy..._

 _...okay I might be saying that because I appear to be the only one in the fandom who hasn't read the RWBY Manga yet because I want to buy it legally (sue me) so don't be too triggered, please and thanks..._

 _Wow, this sure got Games of Thrones pretty quick. Didn't even realize it until I was typing it. I wonder if this is enough to trigger George R.R. Martin? I think he's said that he dislikes fanfiction before, something about it stunting the growth of a writer. Da, comrade, if das was all one wrote. As Ozpin would say, it's up to you to take the first step._

 _That said, I will now be rearranging the chapters so that The Tyrant, chapter 3, is actually following chapter 2 and chapter 2 and 3 quarters._

 _Also, has anyone ever heard the deleted audio logs from Portal 2 that weren't included in the main game which had Caroline screaming? Imagine that but constant and you have what Weiss was doing. yep._

 ** _Review, and embark on your own rapid downward spiral today!_**


	4. The Tyrant

_Recommended listening: something really fucking depressing. Pick your own poison, please_

 **RWBY Backstories:**

 _Porcelain, III: (3 of ?)_

 _The Tyrant_

 _Greetings ladies and gentlemen of the RWBY fanfiction community!_

 ** _(SUPER IMPORTANT THING OF ULTIAMTE EXTREEEEEMEEE IMPORTANCE:_**

 _ **If you are attempting to read the second second chapter, THIS IS NOT IT. That is the previous chapter. I did some spring cleaning despite it not being spring and have put the chapters in order, so this chapter has also undergone some light editing to spruce it up a bit, and keep it more in line with what happened in chapters 2 and 2-2. Might be worth reading again. Nothing too important was changed, really, so...**_

 _ **Basically your chapter is in another tab, so you might wanna hit 'previous' before you keep reading more useless bolded text. Banana. John Madden.)**_

 _Man, this story is getting so dark, I'm gonna need a flashlight. Still, more to come! It all becomes happy eventually, I assure you. Maybe. Probably._

 _I'm hoping so. All doom and gloom gets... monochrome after a while, ya know? (Not that I have anything against the shipping of the same name... don't look at me!)_

 _Writing this while listening to S3RL makes me feel like a bad person. So ya know._

 _Anyway, see you guys at the end of the chapter._

* * *

Weiss Schnee awoke panting and heaving, clawing at her chest and throat as though to force breath into her lungs. Immediately she turned to her nightstand, tearing up the top drawer in her frantic search, and retrieved a blue pill bottle. She fumbled hard enough to spill most of the contents, yet still managed to pour out a handful and swallow it dry, body trembling and shaking. The nightmares continued to claw at her, threatening to pull her somewhere humans did not belong. She resisted, straining against the visions by denying their existence, and as time passed the bloodied hands of friend and foe began receding. They drew back, the bodies they were attached to slithering backwards into the abyss, and all at once the room was quiet save for Weiss' unsteady breathing and the ticking of her clock.

Then, things dulled, and slowly a look of apathy melded over Weiss' features. The already sterile and blank Schnee décor in her room somehow became even blander; everything covered in a dull haze, like wafting heat. It all just seemed so trivial now, so meaningless, and Weiss' sighed at the return to sanity. Beyond Weiss' peripherals, the mirror remained smiling.

The old Schnee clock quietly ticked over to 5am, and so Weiss began her morning routine.

* * *

She spent most of her daily ritual in the bathroom, painstakingly applying her makeup. She could almost imagine Winter's guiding touch, roaming over her face as a welcome intrusion. The softness of her drifting hair, falling over her own...

Weiss stopped, staring at her reflection as even the emotion dampening drugs failed to completely suppress the loss of her sister, the absolute slightest of slights causing her to remember. She swallowed, and forced her hands to stop trembling, cursing herself for falling apart so easily.

In the stead of her psychotic doppelganger, Winter's bloodied face pressed itself against the mirror, peering through like a window. Her features stretched inhumanly, eyes wide and unblinking. Weiss closed her eyes, focusing on her breathing as her heart threatened to beat out of her chest, and deftly braided her hair into an all-business ponytail. She'd need to be everything they expected her to be, letting not a single trace of weakness show through. Something she was not necessarily unskilled at.

She was used to it, after all.

* * *

"She's just a child."

"But didn't you see what she did? Weren't you there? I'm telling you, she's crazy! We're _all_ crazy to have come here solely because she told us to!"

"I'll admit her display was certainly... shocking, but the moment her father hit the floor, Weiss Schnee became acting head of the Schnee household. It's tradition!"

"She's _psychotic!_ You can take your tradition and shove it up your-"

All this and more murmured from the gathered crowd of those employed by the Schnee: servants, guards, advisers, and even some of the less savory individuals the Schnee Dust Corporation had ties with. Unease rolled through the crowd, as every passing minute brought the tensions of the already terrified and paranoid crowd to new levels. Finally, one servant had had enough, and he cried "screw this! I'm going back to Menagerie before that crazy bitch kills us all-"

Weiss' sudden entrance into the main hall of the Schnee Manor was nothing less than a performance both grand and calculated. She carried herself with grave previously absent, despite possessing an entirely mechanical half - the gait of a noble, or perhaps a Queen. The White dress she normally wore was forgone for a double breasted, black and white one, far more formal and regal that went surprisingly well with her pale skin and black-plates. She strode right through the stunned hall, all eyes on her, and ascended to the throne, standing by it yet not seating herself.

All eyes were on the youngest Schnee family head to date, and pausing momentarily to levy a more than adequate stare at the servant who'd spoken out. Her robotic eye visibly focused and unfocused directly on him. He slowly merged back into the crowd, stumbling his way to the back until a guard none-too-gently nudged his spine with an automatic rifle. He mouthed something to the faunus with a smile:

 _No running now_.

"I want firstly to thank you all for coming here." Weiss stated, and instantly half a dozen insults were mentally lodged against herself for the utterly trite and cliché opening. _Stupid moronic idiot -_ She paced her breathing, momentarily calming the self-loathing, then continued. "If I were in your position I'd never have come, so I commend you for your bravery in willing to be part of the solution."

"Solution? To what?" Weiss smiled, appreciating their predictability.

"To what, you ask? How does 'everything' sound?" She boldly proclaimed, and capitalized on the shock to express her point. "My father kept security only a shade lighter than an Atlesian base, but if the attack that cost my sister her life was any indication, it's still not enough." She knew that was not necessarily the truth, but such things were secondary right now. "The White Fang will still find a way." A twinge went through the right side of her body. "We've been stocking up for years and they still managed to overwhelm us. So, if no amount of preparation and caution will stop them, then we have only one option." She drew Myrtenaster, letting the early morning light glint off the blade for dramatic flair. "Attack. We will succeed where others have failed. We _will_ crush the White Fang, and any who oppose the Schnee Dust Corporation."

"What... what makes you so certain you can... ?" One of them asked, as though she had truly gone mad.

"Call it a hunch, or rather call it the newly implemented Schnee Dust Corporation's military contract with Atlas - our dust, their weapons. We have access to more than enough armaments to make the White Fang a distant memory, and with the profits we're going to earn next financial quarter with the new Dust crisis in eastern Mistral, we can afford it too." She raised Myrtenaster towards the sky, the gleam of obsessive certainty shining clearly in her organic eye.

"This is a dictatorship! An act of _war_! How do you know the other kingdoms won't declare war on us for this!?" A rather spineless advisor squealed (or so it sounded to Weiss' ears).

"Because we are doing something none of them ever had the gall to do. We're refusing to let the White Fang win. Now, we take the fight to them. For all the loved ones they've taken from us, for everything of ours they've destroyed... we will fight!" She boldly thrust her rapier forward, and all at once great bundles of cloth unfurled from the high ceiling and revealed the Schnee family crest emblazoned on a white banner. The twin ice dragons wrapped in perfect symmetry around a silver blade.

 _For Winter._

"Together, we can make a difference that matters! We will use this power, our influence for good! We-" And so on and so on Weiss lectured of the glorious future she was leading the company towards, like a king galvanizing his troops. It was something to focus on as the side effects of the emotion dampening drugs were brought to bear, a feeling of total apathy and emptiness, but it was negligible compared to the bloody, familiar faces screaming from the ground. Weiss promised a brighter tomorrow, a better future, everything people in her position had ever said and more. She genuinely believed (or hoped in a manner bordering on obsessive) in what she said, in doing what was right. At the given moment, it was all that kept her sane. She was praying this would work - they had no reason to trust her. And with how little sleep she'd been getting since... since Winter...

...it was impossible for her to truly strategize. Thus, she went for what was most immediate as a plan. Her tactics tutor would be so disappointed...

"-And I know what you must be thinking. 'How am I involved? What does this have to do with us?'" Weiss decided to close this out. "It's quite simple; it's your choice. My father held you all as little more than slaves, perhaps less. But I took the time to sift through the four-hundred and seventeen files of Servants still currently employed at the Schnee Manor and personally raise your pay. You all get holidays, and can have emotional and paternity leave, along with proper rates for working overtime - as a gift for being part of the new age of the Schnee Dust corporation. Your continued employment is also your choice. You can choose to leave, here and now, and be done with the Schnee. Forever. You have my personal guarantee. Those who chose to stay however will become part of perhaps the greatest Peace-keeping Organisation in the world, specifically made to instill real change and cause real progress. We don't have to stop with the White Fang - we can aim larger, wider. Ladies and gentlemen of the Schnee Dust corporation... we can save the whole world." And wasn't that just a tempting offer.

Weiss had studied thoroughly and rehearsed dutifully to make her speech as appealing as possible. She borrowed from motivational speakers, famous politicians, corporate advertising, any information she could get her hands on when it came to swaying a crowd. She needed these people - without them the day-to-day functions of the corporation's Headquarters would fail, and spectacularly at that. There was far too much for one person to handle alone. She'd become crushed under the paperwork.

She stayed silent, hands behind her back, Myrternaster sheathed, standing before the Schnee throne as a sign of humility.

Then, finally, one old voice chirped up "that... is perhaps the most naïve proposition I've ever heard." Weiss balked, and the crowd parted as the weathered servant stood alone, his grey wolf tail swishing back and forth lazily. Of course, with how the Faunus were treated, it was almost impossible to surmise if he was 30 or 60, but he spoke with natural experience that was hard to fake.

"Excuse me?" Weiss said dangerously.

"You are a fool for thinking that you deserve so much power." He responded without fear of consequence, and Weiss jerked as though slapped hard. "A corporation like the Schnee's, taking up arms, and using it to 'keep the peace'... you'd start another Great War. There is a reason there has been no large-scale military action against the White Fang, M'Lady, and that it is why. Frankly, I came here out of respect for your mother, but it seems I was wrong in assuming you would be like her." Weiss' whole body twinged, and went numb. A noise like soft screaming rose at the back of her mind, steadily increasing in decibel.

"No." He said aloud, to himself or to Weiss, perhaps both. "You're still just a child." Then he turned, sighed, and walked away.

Soon, others were joining him. Weiss watched her hopes fall apart like wet paper, feeling a hollowness utterly indescribable as dozens started towards the door - though the passageway was far too narrow for the crowd, so it reduced the extradition to a crawl. The screaming rose, drowning out the world with its noise. She suddenly found herself on her knees, unaware of when she'd kneeled, tears steadily flowing from her eyes.

 _Is this just... it? Everything I've been through... and I... can't... even once... succeed at just one thing?_

 **From somewhere no mortal eyes could see, a figure watched Weiss' deteriorating condition with rapt attention and a mirthful grin. This... this would be good...**

 _...I'm so sorry, Winter... it should've been me... it always should've been me..._ all of her progress suddenly lost as she almost immediately relapsed into the sobbing mess she'd been for weeks after Winter's death. And even then there were more tears to shed. She had a feeling there would always be, until the day she died.

In a world far more fair, Weiss would never have lost her sister - not for many years, at least. She would always be the very embodiment of the lonely princess from fairy tales of old, but she would rise above it - to become the Schnee familyhead that it so desperately needed, as well as the world. One of the greatest Huntresses in Remnant ever known.

Except not all fairy tales have a happy ending.

 **"S _h_ o _w_ t _i_ m _e_."**

And this world was far from fair.

In the midst of her despair, a thought suddenly appeared in Weiss' head. _For Winter_. The simple thought, the very notion, had a galvanizing effect on her mind and body. _That's... that's right... I... I'm being selfish. I know what I have to do. I can't let it all just be for nothing._

Weiss slowly stood back up, _For Winter, For Winter, For Winter_ playing through her mind endlessly. The emotion dampening drugs seemed to be kicking in fully finally, because she felt nothing of what she did before, though the slow scream - more a screech, really - remained steadily in the background. She glared bloody murder at the crowd, whispered her mantra to herself one last time, and shouted with all the authority of someone befitting her station.

"Stop them! I want them all captured immediately! Initiate Schnee Directive SD-14, non-lethal force only!"

There was a moment of inaction as nothing happened - the guards too stunned, the crowd too focused on leaving - and then slowly the room started humming, growing into a dull roar of whirring machinery. The latest Atlesian military robotics - and even some that had yet to be made public - descended from the ceiling, falling in synchronized squads and landing with ominous metallic thuds. The human guards only briefly hesitated before carrying out their orders, but were still side-lined by the fast and efficient methods of the robots. The crowd would've easily devolved into panic, perhaps a riot, if left to human hands. But the machines cared not for personal wellbeing, and as such the Faunus were being dragged by their sensitive ears, and tails, and anything else easily grabbed, to be sorted as quickly as possible. They were promptly cuffed, organized, and forced to seat themselves on the cold marble floor of the Schnee manor's main hall. A crowd of more than 400 in under two minutes; Weiss was impressed.

Then her gaze slowly turned to the old man who'd spoken up before, and ordered the robots to kneel him before her. They did, and he was suddenly none-too-gently forced to kneel at the foot of the throne he'd just besmirched. Even so, he steadily looked up, as defiant as ever.

"I was wrong." He spoke after a moment. "You do take after your parents. Just certainly not from your mot-" And so Weiss cut him, Myrtenaster leaving a bloody gash straight across his chest. Any deeper, and she'd have perforated his lungs.

The low screaming had yet to disappear, and so it steadily rose, refusing to let Weiss think completely rationally, sanely - it drove her to instinct. And cold, cold logic.

 **"F _o_ r** **W _i_ n _t_ e _r_** **,"** **the creature said to itself, and laughed in dark amusement.**

Weiss levied Myrnetaster at the old Wolf Faunus' throat, and spoke in an authoritative yet regal tone.

"You know, I wasn't particularly sure if we finished executing all the White Fang informants. There could always have been more." The old man's eyes steadily widened, perhaps realizing what Weiss was alluding to or something like it. It was, after all, the idea of a mad woman. "Perhaps we have to take a more... thorough approach."

"...I know what you're thinking," he was abruptly pleading, and Weiss smirked almost imperceptibly. "But these people don't deserve to be punished for my mistake."

Of all the things Weiss could've done, honestly, breaking out into dark laughter was still the most chilling.

"Your mistake? No. As I recall these people left of their own accord. You're all traitors to the crown." She spoke in a haughty, arrogant voice. "And there is only one fate for traitors."

The old man started sobbing, eyes whipping back and forth. "N-no! Please! My children are here!" _Where is your superiority, now that you kneel at the feet of the Queen?_ The screaming voices almost seemed to... agree. Becoming pleasing tones like soft whispering, loud as it may be, at Weiss' decision to harm this man. But she wanted so much more. The wrath of the Queen would, in time, become legendary in its cruelty. Even though it was still fledging, it was enough to reduce a man of fortitude to a sobbing mess. And still, it would worsen.

Weiss paused in thought for a moment, searching her memory, a contemptuous and arrogant expression still residing on her face. Then, she slowly turned to the crowd, and gestured to several of those captive. "Bring them to me."

And so the Schnee automatons did, bringing the children of this man before Weiss. They were of varying ages, from kids to young adults, but the 4 of them still had his eyes.

Weiss kicked their father over onto his side, so that he laid directly before them, causing several of his children to flinch. Only one of them didn't, a young female Fox Faunus with an identical expression to her father's from minutes ago.

The Schnee heir addressed the bound crowd. "I gave you all a choice in whether or not to help me make a difference. All of you chose to be spineless, weak, sniveling, _gutless_ cowards that are afraid of change. That is fine. Servants do not have to be intelligent, after all." She levied a deadly glare at the wounded father, hunched over and looking directly into his children's eyes. "They only have to be loyal."

 **More dark laughter rang in a place mortals could not fathom. "O _h_ , I k _n_ e _w_ y _o_ u h _a_ d i _t_ i _n_ y _o_ u, c _h_ i _l_ d."**

"And the price of lacking that loyalty, for daring to go against my will..." Myrtenaster slowly drew a line along his throat. He was whispering something to his children that made them cry endlessly, presumably the pride he took in having them. Weiss' young yet not-insignificant aura let her grab the older man by the head, dragging him to his knees once more.

"I love you..." he admitted in a broken sob. "I love you all so much..."

The youngest of them looked up with innocent, terrified eyes. Eyes Weiss had once seen in a mirror not too long ago. Something inside her twisted painfully, and she scowled, the voices reaching a fever pitch.

"I... I love you too daddy... please... please don't-"

The silver rapier decapitated the Faunus with a single, precise swipe, tearing through muscle and sinew and bone and flesh with savage ease. Blood sprayed hot and thick from the stump, first flowing from all sides of the gash then bursting out like a geyser as the head fell off. Most of it landed on the young girl, though all of his children were caught in the spray, as was Weiss, who unknown even to herself licked away several drops from her lips. The screaming was so loud Weiss couldn't even acknowledge what she'd done, just stare with that same contemptuous look at the blood dripping off Myrtenaster. His head rolled to the youngest's feet, frozen forever in terror.

The youngest had a single moment of stunned disbelief before she started screaming, the other two shocked into silence. The last one-

Weiss grunted as something fast and forceful impacted her stomach, throwing her backwards into the throne, Myrtenaster knocked from her grip. The Fox Faunus had somehow managed her way out of the cuffs, and the two robots standing before her throne had transformed into so much scrap metal. The rest of the robots were already mobilizing, but with how _fast_ the Faunus was, she was straddling Weiss in a heartbeat and rearing back her claws to deliver a killing blow.

Weiss stared death in the face for the second time in her young life. Myrtenaster was far out of her reach, and even her half-mechanical body would not survive decapitation. Everything seemed to brighten as a mixture of natural and artificial adrenaline flooded her body, her synthetic heartrate drastically increasing in a fraction of a second. Heart pounding wildly, Weiss wondered if she should even try not to die. It was... only just...

And then Weiss had a thought that would change her for the rest of her life.

 _No... I can't die. Not like this. Not yet. I... I have to make Winter proud. I can't let her death be in vain._

So Weiss did something she never did before. Small glyphs appeared at the ends of her fingertips, like snowflakes, so intricate and beautiful, spinning faster and faster.

Then she jammed them into the Faunus' eyes.

The Faunus fell back, screaming as the rotating glyphs burrowed deeper and deeper into her skull, splattering blood everywhere like a sprinkler. Weiss' white and black outfit, already lightly stained by blood, was soon soaked red by the screaming girl's blood. A dark god's laughter rang loud and clear, vile and malicious, from very, very far away.

Weiss just stared at her blood-soaked hands, at the glyphs still spinning. For a fraction of a second, she could swear they turned red, then they flickered and died.

Finally, after what must have been a full minute of unfathomable pain, the Weiss' attacker suddenly stopped screaming her lungs out, and fell completely silent. Then, she fell over, the glyphs having burrowed all the way through and out the other side, covered in blood and brain matter.

A moment of disturbed silence past, before all at once the captive crowd started screaming for their lives, terrified beyond reason. Some attempted to scramble away, others trying to hack away their own hands to escape - all were caught before they made any significant progress, but the terror, true terror, the terror of witnessing an utter monster was still there.

For amidst this panic, amidst the chaos and confusion, the screaming in Weiss' head reached a new octave and so she threw her head back and laughed, uproariously, and with an unmistakably deranged touch of madness. Laughing and laughing as her subjects screamed and cried.

" _Let's make them feel_ our _pain."_

* * *

 _I... I had to make them fear me..._

With the assembled crowd terrified into subservience, and Weiss' well of humour dried up, the young heiress bit out "resume your regular duties. _Do not_ think of escaping." And retreated to her chambers.

Only then, with the empty room to hear her cries, did she completely fall apart.

 _I had to... I had to... they wouldn't listen... she attacked me..._

She could almost feel her glyphs cutting into her eyes, feel them viciously tear apart her skull. Dust, she didn't even know her Glyphs could _do_ that. They normally created a field of acceleration, of propulsion - more advanced versions could even manipulate time - but to propel _themselves_... she could only think it was the sign of her becoming a monster. To twist one's very semblance, morph beautiful snowflakes into bloody sawblades... it was _inhuman_. She felt the urge to throw up, and moments later she did, heaving into her bathroom toilet. The mirror watched on, smiling, smiling. Always smiling.

She just... couldn't stop _shaking_ at the horror of what she'd done. But she'd done it, anyway.

 _For Winter_.

Weiss let out a dry gasp, eyes shut and whispering "oh dust... oh dust... holy fucking dust..." (Her father would've had her hide for swearing like this, but he wasn't in the mood for much of anything anymore.) "...why does life have to be this... this cruel? What made me do all of that? Why can't I do anything right? Why... why... why?"

"Always with the 'why'."

Weiss stopped, tears streaking down her bloodied face. She was alone in this bathroom.

Slowly, slowly, she turned around.

Then she screamed her head off.

"Surprised, sister?" Winter's corpse said in a perfect imitation of her vaguely haughty tone. Because it couldn't be her. It couldn't be. _It couldn't be._ Even her chuckle was a perfect replica of Winter's. "I suppose I do look quite... garish."

Mostly since she was still as clothed as the last time Weiss saw her - being violated at the hands of the White Fang. Her body was battered, red rivulets running over her normally stunning form, as the cut flesh bled as steadily as ever. Bite marks were _everywhere,_ leaving scant flesh pale. Weiss stared lower, between Winter's toned but broken legs, and still saw the white and red trails leaking down. She also happened to still have her head.

Weiss turned and threw up again.

That same chuckle. If Weiss hadn't thrown up so much already, she would've again, the sound sickening her to the core.

"I couldn't possibly look _that_ bad... could I?"

Weiss was not in the mood for pleasantries.

"...Look... whoever you are... _whatever_ you are... please. Please, don't pretend. You're not my sister. My sister is dead. I... I let her die, because I'm a failure." The words brought no comfort to Weiss, and she imagined it never would. No amount of self-loathing could bring back her sister - because if it did, she would've come back a dozen times over already.

"Why would you say such cruel things to me?" The corpse said in mock anguish. Then, it grinned. "If you truly think I am not Winter... then perhaps I can help you in... other ways..."

Weiss' eyes widened. _Oh no... oh dust no... no no no no no-_

The imitation was suddenly on its hands and knees, crawling towards her slowly, _sensually,_ dust forbid. Weiss dragged herself backwards, further and further until there was no more room to run, back against the cold marble wall. But Winter was taller, _longer_ , and she reached her with terrifying sensual grace, the slow gait of a predator stalking its prey.

Weiss hyperventilated as the creature delicately traced the contours of her body with her hands. The mirror was grinning hard enough to pull its face taut.

"Such a fine girl you've developing into, sister..." it purred. "Please... scream for your older sister?"

As the corpse's hands forced Weiss' legs apart, the 11 year old had no trouble fulfilling that request.

* * *

 _( **I swear I'll finish chapter 2 soon! I swear! Soon... eventually...** )_

 _This is probs my first story that deserves to be under the M rating. Hence why it is under the M rating. You get what you signed up for, folks._

 _I wrote this before chapter 2. Probably because I had to get into the 'mood' of 'so dark I need to sacrifice puppies to Satan to maintain the atmosphere'._

 ** _Review, please and thank you. or have your realistic implications of your typical Hentai incest fantasy accost you today!_**


	5. The Lamb

_Recommended listening: "Hurt", by Johnny Cash_

 **RWBY Backstories:**

 _Porcelain, IV: (4 of 5)_

 _The Lamb_

 _Greetings ladies and gentlemen of the RWBY fanfiction community!_

 ** _(Addendum? Again? Yes indeed. Because I have the entire story written, I'm just going to upload one a day, starting today, and ending tomorrow. What? A little late to make that announcement? Yes, probably. But that kind of talk is also why you're not getting fed this week, you dirty little orphan. Enjoy!)_**

 _Am writing this once again before the second chapter... yeah... I'm bad like that. So I have no idea how you guys have responded to the whole rape thing (which makes me uncomfortable as well btw) but honestly I was hoping to make this mature rated anyway (there's also the issue of self-harm, depicted here and at the end of chapter 1. Are people okay with that?) Everything serves its own purpose in writing. If you're trying to write something at least half decent anyway..._

 _I'm rambling, aren't I? Well, okay. For the record, next chapter marks the end of this story, and the half-way point of the RWBY Backstories series. Next, we got some stuff about a certain revolutionary, the son of a crimelord, and then at least one other thing (underwraps, folks! Call me old-fashioned but you need to take the idea out to dinner first if you wanna look that deep into it)_

 ** _OH, AND SUPER IMPORTANT FOR THOSE THAT HAVE ONLY READ THIS STORY AND NOT THE PREMISE BEHIND THE MAIN STORY THIS IS ALL SET IN THE UNIVERSE FOR:_**

 _Given that this is a slight x-over, the elements of which are not overtly present in this particular story, you may encounter something you do not expect later on. But do not fret. All shall be revealed in time... man I've always wanted to say that..._

* * *

Nowadays, Weiss took precautions.

She kept the only key to her room, which was locked at _all_ times. Myrtenaster was within arms reach at _all_ times. She doubled, then tripled her medication count, until she could barely even feel Myrtenaster's sharp edge biting into her skin when she desired to feel _something_ besides the emptiness. A sizable force of synthetic guards patrolled the premises at all times, outfitted with the deadliest of Dust weaponry, alongside a whole slew of hidden defenses Weiss told very, very few about. The manor had, at one point, mere months ago, been nothing more than a large work of marble and glass. Now, it was a fortress, the seat of power of the Schnee Dust corporation. 3 story quadruple-reinforced walls with electrified barbed wire, watch towers operated by enormous ever-vigilant turrets, steadily thrumming with the urge to eradicate intruders at all times. All of this loomed ominously in the horizon, casting a shadow onto the world of snow, a dark monument to Weiss' ascension to the throne.

Inside, it was another fortress entirely, with clearance required for almost every other corridor. The originally elegant and intricate white walls of the once-home-then-prison had given way for the stark, sterile appearance of almost a military base, with Winter's banner proudly bared on every wall. Beneath, in the already infamous basement of the Schnee Manor, the machinations of a Tyrant laid in wait, a sleeping monster poised to slay the world.

And yet despite how much had changed, the servants of the Schnee manor quickly and quietly resumed their duties, following the rather bloody executions commenced within the throne room. Strange how some things can return to normal so quickly, but never, ever be the same.

Because, running a hand over the right side of the body, and feeling the cold metal that made memories of soft skin and blood and _burning pain_ resurface, Weiss wasn't sure if she was still... Weiss. Still human. To her side, the one-way window overviewing the compound showcased dozens of working robots and Faunus, all knowing exactly what they must do, scurrying about. Like bees in a hive. And with one hand, she could kill them all. Order their immediate execution, no questions asked. The power, after spending so long simply without, was... _intoxicating._ A younger Weiss would never have even considered holding this much power, keenly aware of what it does to people. The monsters they become.

"I'm not a monster..." she whispered, to herself or to the room's other, grinning occupant she wasn't sure. She moved her gaze to the mirror, something she'd sung to once, a long, long time ago. She peered directly in, for once wishing she could see the grinning monster - instead, she only saw a machine. A freak. "Am I?"

"That depends," the monster hissed into her ear, running cold hands over Weiss' body, degrading her just that little bit more. After that particular incident, Weiss' nightmares took a much more specific turn. Her own violation played out again and again as she wept over Winter's corpse startled to dull things in a way that had little to do with the medication. As such, despite the revulsion rolling under her skin like a violent beast, her apathy persisted. There was simply nothing the monster could do that Weiss hadn't already done to herself. It was... typical. Expected.

Normal. Even though it shouldn't.

"What do you see?" Winter asked, though she wasn't really there.

Weiss searched the mirror for answers. Two halves. Monster, machine - human, creature. A broken child stared back, as did a morose killer, a sadistic psychopath, a machine, and an apathetic doll. The one who wondered one thing, and one thing only; _did I ever leave? Even for just a moment?_

"I... I don't know anymore..."

The child cried, and the Devil smiled back.

* * *

Weiss Schnee made for an intimidating sight, seated on the throne of the Schnee Empire (for he would not pretend it was any less). She glared with a force unbecoming of anything less than a ruler, as though everything was a waste of her very, very valuable time. Face rested in a open metal palm, utterly immobile, like a statue carved from ice.

The cybernetics, of course, also added to the effect. Mainly since they were so seamless it was impossible to tell if she was a human made machine or a machine made human.

A mysterious regality overcame her the moment she claimed the throne for herself, like a Queen restored to her birthright of power. Yes... birthright. Weiss Schnee had been _born_ an worthy heir, he had no doubt.

That, or they had made her one.

Roman Torchwick hummed a merry tune as he strode up to the second most powerful individual in the entirety of Atlas, hardly about to let the intimidation get to him. Twirling his cane, he laid it across his shoulders as he stopped, staring defiantly at the 11 and a half year old girl.

Roman was impressed; she glared well. He broke the non-verbal show of strength off with an easy going smile, saying loudly and cockily "please, please. I'm aware of my looks, but let us discuss business before pleasure."

Weiss Schnee scowled, and the normally impregnable Roman Torchwick almost moved back. Almost. It took everything he had to remind himself his death was not beneficial to her. A lot of reminding.

"Then talk." She demanded. "I have an empire to run, and a so-called 'rebellion' to destroy."

 _Dust almighty, did she even mean to sound like Emperor Serpentine*?_ "Ah, yes... well..." Roman spoke for the sake of speaking. Weiss scowled harder, her patience rapidly and visibly thinning. "I have a business proposition."

"Of course you do, you idiot. No one visits me for anything else anymore..." Weiss muttered, Roman blinking with his mouth slightly parted. Well. That answer caught him slightly by surprise. Slightly... damnit, he was getting all out of sorts dealing with this girl. She wasn't even that much older than Ruby, for dust's sake! Perhaps the similarity was throwing him off...

But then Ruby was still innocent, and red-cheeked, and in love with the world while Weiss Schnee probably mutilated puppies for fun. Still, they both had a very unique brand of crazy, so they had that in common. Like cousins, maybe...

Weiss Schnee was levying a glare so expect and fiery Roman almost thought she was psychically binding him to her will, or trying anyway. He coughed, and continued, ashamed a great deal that he'd allowed himself to become distracted by thoughts of the young child. And also a fair bit worried.

"Suppose I were to say, 'I have information on a certain Red-headed Bull Faunus that may be trying to overthrow society'." Weiss' human eye widened. "Ah buh-buh-but! But! Suppose I then said, 'however, there was something I needed of you first before I divulge such information'."

"Name it." Weiss said instantly, eye still wide and chest beginning to visibly heave with rapid breathing. Well, wasn't somebody just the littlest bit obsessed?

"Cooperation. I have big plans, and big plans cost lots and lots of lien, and resources, and more lien, and more resources..." he stated. "If you foot the bill-"

"Done."

"-then... then... wait, what?" Roman espoused, the very definition of flabbergasted. "But I haven't finished haggling yet! Normal people are _against_ spending lots of money on a 'maybe!' They won't just-"

"Then I would encourage you to be grateful for me not exactly being 'normal'." Weiss interrupted without tact nor care. "I have after all no intention of 'footing the bill' if you provide false information. No, I'll spend that money on a much more important matter - skinning you alive." And from the look in her eye, it was very clear she'd do it herself. She'd seen so much and done worse, so why bother for compassion on scum like him?

Even her best friend had used her, in the end. It was rather abundantly clear others could not be trusted unless something was held over them. As one of the cripplingly few constants in her horrifying existence, she clung to the principle for dear life. As it would turn out, such morality fit perfectly within the world of business she'd fallen headlong into.

Roman Torchwick just stared. _So maybe the resemblances are a little more spread out than I initially thought... could still be cousin about 26 times removed..._ then shook the thought off. _You can be suave in your own time, Roman._ _Right now it's business. The little cookie monster's waiting on you._

"...So," Roman eventually put out, as though waiting to see how it would cause Weiss to react. She continued to stare with as much eerie passivity as a statue. "We just agree? No reading of the terms of service? What if I was asking for your soul on there?" He joked, finding it impossible to truly shut his mouth.

"I don't have one." Weiss responded evenly, and an aura ( _real_ aura) of frozen death frosted the air, chilling Roman deeper than he'd ever felt in his life. The throne of the Schnee heir froze over, the air in the room abruptly becoming twice as dense and even colder. Ominous mist began to billow and spread.

"No," Weiss continued aloud, and from the vacant expression on her face, it was impossible to tell if she even recognized Roman as being there at all. "I haven't had a soul since I was 5 years old."

Billowing hair and the warmth of a deep embrace.

 _You'll... make me proud... Weiss..._

The little girl closed her eyes, heaving a sigh of someone decades her senior. The voices were about to get very loud, very, very fast. "I trust you to find your own way out." And then she left, fleeing from the grasping limbs and motherly smiles and the haunting look on Velvet's face as she brought Myrtenaster to bear and-

* * *

 _They say every hero has their own destiny, their own fated path to walk. Events beyond their control or understanding unfurl regardless of what they want. And not all fates are particularly kind ones..._

 _But what if one strayed from that path? What if a hero, someone who would rise above their heritage, their experiences, unwittingly walked along a much different path? The natural order does not take defiance well. As such, nothing will be found down that path but hate and suffering. Sometimes the way back sacrifice what the path stood for in the first place. Sometimes a person simply becomes... lost._

 _Weiss Schnee is such a person. Between the death of her loved ones, and the compounding mental trauma that followed, the girl who would prove that we may be more than the sum of another's actions became... well..._

 **M _y_ f _a_ v _o_ u _r_ i _t_ e.**

 _...misguided. Cynical. Jaded. Young eyes staring out at the world with an old expression._

 _But perhaps this path is not so easily avoidable as it may seem. Some things are inevitable; after all, was it not the thought of the eventual end that made mankind conjure the idea of 'fate' so long ago?_

 _And so as certain as the changing of seasons and the passing of time, Weiss Schnee fled from her demons, only to encounter one strange little girl..._

* * *

Ruby Rose was fascinated by this place.

The ceilings rose as high as some of the buildings back in Vale, and the elaborate archways were carved with rich, hand-sculpted detail of valiant battles and figures. The patterned marble flooring sparkled like black and white diamonds, with busts and portraits and banners and countless other objects equidistant from one another along it. All of painted in themes of black and white, silver and grey.

It was, surprisingly, most of what Ruby expected of a mansion owned by a family that was filthy, stinking rich.

Then her small tongue darted out between pursed lips, an inquisitive gleam in her eyes. _Except_...

She attempted to look simultaneously in every direction known to man, darting around so fast she almost gave herself whiplash - before gesturing with a valiant cry of "Ah- _hah_!" towards a seemingly inconspicuous bust, red cloak fluttering. She moved forward to prove her claim - by force if necessary - then her legs became gelatinous and she fell flat on her face.

"~Owie..." she groaned. "Dizzy~..."

Peeling her face off the floor moments later, she deftly jumped to her feet and appeared before the bust with a finger outstretched in a flurry of red petals. "Talk, by the Cookies, talk! You're an important looking bust in a rich person's house, you have to lead to an infinite supply of cookies or something!" She felt around the sides of the bust in a manner that might be considered molestation on a real person.

And so it was that Weiss Schnee first encountered Ruby Rose, manhandling a delicate bust of her deceased sister, screaming "Do you lead to cookies!? Do you dispense cookies?! _Are_ you a cookie!?" In a move that defied all kinds of logic and reason, she bit the bust. " _Ptwah!_ You're a terrible cookie!" Teeth marks were imprinted on Winter's forehead, with saliva slowly dribbling over her face. Oh Dust, she'd _nibbled_ on it.

It had been many months since Weiss had felt like this. Nonetheless, she recognized the sensation of wholesome, honest confusion at once.

Despite how angered she _should_ have been at such disrespect to her home and her deceased sister, the first thing Weiss Schnee ever said to Ruby Rose in a dull voice was -

"What is wrong with you?" In a tone of such genuine confusion her eyebrows and eyelids were both brought low, mouth parted. The voices as well had gone quiet, though for an entirely different reason.

Ruby's shoulders hitched. Slowly, slowly, with the body language of someone who _knows_ they've been caught, she gently slid down the bust like a fireman's pole and hit the floor with a soft 'thump'.

"Ruh roh." She whispered.

Weiss' disinterest in dealing with other people was already in full effect due to her meeting with Roman, so it would not have been a surprise to find her swiftly reprimanding the younger girl and having one of the many robot guards escort her from the premises. But as Weiss peered into the soft, silver eyes, she reacted in a way that surprised even herself.

Unbridled revulsion.

"Get out of my home." She hissed venomously, visibly shaking with rage. "I don't care who you are or what you want. I want you _gone_." The longer she stared into those eyes, the deeper her anger became. She couldn't explain it. She just... hated, hated, _hated_ that look in her eyes. And she was desperate to replace it with anything else.

Ruby stared back, eyes tearing up. "Wha... but I... I'm... I'm s-s-sorry if I did something wrong! Please don't kick me out! I need to stay here for when my big brother gets back and-" She stopped. Then, she looked around. With a sheepish chuckle, and scratching the back of her head, Ruby admitted "...I think I wandered off. Sorry..."

"I said!" Weiss started screaming. "Get! OUT!" And brandished Myrtenaster with a deafening cry of screeching metal.

Ruby was silent for the longest moment, taking in Weiss' countenance and bared blade. Then, her face changed, mood darkening and eyes losing all warmth. It was like she'd become another person entirely before the heiress' very eyes. From little girl... to _this_.

 _This_ happened to be evaluating Weiss' weapon none-too-subtly, expression vacant yet calculating and cold all the same. She eyed Weiss like meat.

"You seek to... kill me, then?" Ruby responded in a toneless voice. Inhuman. Predatory. Weiss was so suddenly terrified, yet _angry_ beyond words for some inexplicable reason that she replied in the 'if that's what it takes'. Ruby nodded back, and immediately something black and red thrust out from where her arm used to be, aiming for Weiss' neck with lethal intent.

Weiss' recent months spent in extensive training were the only reason she dodged the attack, by less than a millimeter. Still, a red line was drawn on her neck as she backed off, falling into a defensive crouch a fair distance away.

She looked up, pale blue eyes blazing in rage, before they widened in horror.

Where Ruby's arm once was, a mass of pulsing black and red flesh was instead. No, not some random mass... it fluctuated between shapes, the shapes of _weapons_. Swords, axes, hammers, even some rather macabre guns - finally, it settled on one of the oldest tools of death known to mankind.

A Claw, fashioned after the ones beared by Beowolves. Tipped in four gleaming silver blades, Ruby's monstrous arm slowly rose and straightened, levied directly at Weiss.

"You are a convenient excuse to utilize this in battle."

More of the strange black and red organic matter dripped from the hand, pooling on the ground in a perfect circle. The claw lowered, reaching into the pool, and grasped something. Ruby got as far as pulling out a dark, menacing handle wrapped in thorns before a gloved hand came down and patted her on the head.

"Now now ladies, aren't you two a little young to be fighting over me?" Roman Torchwick interrupted them with, the organic mass spontaneously receding to... somewhere. He leaned over and whispered into Ruby's ear, and if it weren't for Weiss' one cybernetic ear she wouldn't have heard him say "easy on the new toy, kiddo. We need her alive."

Weiss scowled even deeper than before, but knew better than to say anything.

Roman stepped between them with a loud clap of his hands, merrily walking towards Weiss Schnee without a thought of worry. "It's amazing the things kids get up to, isn't it? One minute, you leave them in a very cozy little waiting room, then the next _they're trying to murder your client_." Roman shifted tones and spoke darkly for only a moment, but even the creature's expression was rendered into a sheepish smile. "Sheesh. If I was half as difficult to raise, I think that completely explains my life of larceny and being damn proud of it." He gestured for Ruby to come over. "Come on. I don't got all day."

Ruby Rose, having completed one more transformation back into a little girl, gingerly trod to Roman's side. Still, now that she knew what to look for, Weiss found an undercurrent of analytical intent, like a predator lying in wait. Head downcast, she mumbled out an apology. Roman pressed an open hand to his ear, saying "what's that? Little timmy fell down a well? Speak _up,_ you idiot." Weiss found surprisingly little, if any, venom in Roman's words.

Ruby lifted her head, pouting and tearing up like a puppy, and said "I-I'm sawwy M-Miss S-Schnee. Pwease don't pwess c-charges." Roman whacked her upside the head.

"Not _that_ kind of apology, you little cookie monster. Though not having our day in court would mean less wasted time for the both of us," Roman mused aloud. "I suppose that's all I can expect of you."

"I-I-I'm sorry Roman, I didn't mean-"

He waved it off. "If you're sorry about it, it means you're less inclined to do it again, and that's enough of a win in my book." Ruby's expression switched instantly to joy, probably her default setting, and she leaped a solid two feet to hug Roman around the neck, who suddenly fell over rasping "too tight, too tight, too tight..." with Ruby along for the ride.

That same feeling of revulsion filled Weiss' stomach, daring her to do something crazy. But at the same time, she saw a small girl in a white dress, holding dearly onto a much older lookalike, with a young woman holding the tallest one's hand. She saw them laugh, and smile, and suddenly Weiss' revulsion was secondary to the impending tidal wave of tears. Except she was still in front of guests, business partners no less, and so she bit back on the tears, swearing to let them out later.

"...Anyway, we have to be leaving. Other business to attend to, and all that. You can contact me through the usual channels of the Vale Blackmarket - ask for the Jester." Roman's very business-orientated response guided Weiss back into a functioning state of mind. "If they say, 'he's in court', then pass it along to Junior." He shared a significant look with Ruby that definitely alluded to there being something more to it, but Weiss wouldn't dare make the mistake of prying. "He'll pass it to me."

The undisputed King of the Vale underground clacked his boots together, and removed his hat while taking a performer's bow. "It was a pleasure doing business with you." He ruffled Ruby's hair with a condescending hand, and the little girl looked up with a displeased pout. Chuckling, he turned away and said "come on Red, there's still too many people with far too much money to stop now." He walked, Ruby following him every step of the way as they continued to trade jabs and converse.

Weiss watched them walk off, the memories playing before her eyes. Long after they were gone, she continued to stare, until eventually returning to her room to unleash her tears. The seething disgust and anger remained, but as Weiss downed a couple handful more pills, she found herself unable to care anymore, drowning in the numbness.

* * *

 _"Do you hate them because they remind you? Remind you of what you once were, so pitiful and weak? Now, blood has made you strong. Pain has broken you, yet in the process, you were reforged far stronger than before."_

Weiss trudged through the snow, whispers of the creature calling itself Winter floating around her, through her, and back again. The endless whispers were impossible to decipher, but that was how she knew she was getting close.

All forms of logical thought indicated that the creature was not real, that it was all in her head, that the trauma of losing her sister and everything else that happened in such a short span of time had... gotten to her. But the monster's touch felt too... intimate, too _real_ to be fake, and so if nothing else than to take her mind off her steady spiral into insanity, she came here.

She had to end this. To confront her. But she would not give the White Fang what they wanted. She was determined to survive. Otherwise, Winter would have died a pointless death, and Weiss would rather live in her current situation for eternity than let that happen.

 _"Only the weak feel shame and regret for necessary means. You are enduring a path to something beyond human, beyond mortal... will you take the next leap, I wonder?"_

She held her cybernetic hand up to shield against the snow, the winds howling along with the voices as she neared her destination. A lesser being would have been driven insane by the noise, but Weiss had performed the first rite of a ritual she knew not, and so the dark blessings did little against her studious conviction.

 _"The cycle, the cycle, the cycle... it begins again."_

All at once, it stopped. The wind, the whispers, the pressure on Weiss' skull she hadn't even noticed until now. The heiress paused, left hand lowering cautiously towards the hilt of Myrtenaster. It was like being in a vacuum, devoid of anything save the endless white. But as she looked into the horizon, at the slow breaking of dawn perfectly framed by the distant mountains, she knew she was in the right place.

Where Winter was buried.

" _Why,"_ her corpse rasped, apparently fond of toying with Weiss' emotions. _"why did you let me die? So that I may save a monster like you?_ _..."_

* * *

 _..._

Weiss screamed. She screamed and screamed and screamed, beyond any form of rational thought as terror pure and utter coursed through her. The monster wearing her face sliced and clawed and hacked apart her body, red snow blossoming from where she laid. Weiss gurgled on her own blood, convulsing as she soiled herself.

 _Is... is this how I die...?_

The creature was laughing, relishing its power as it dragged claws through her skin again and again and again and again...

 _...screaming... alone... in pain...?_

It drew back, and stabbed both claws through Weiss' chest. Her body was already so battered, and her mind so shattered, that she didn't even make a noise aside from the squelching of cut flesh.

 _Why... why did it have to be me? My sister, my life... am I fated to just... suffer? Is that all the world wants from me? To be a good little doll and stay quiet as I bleed?_

Something gave, Weiss' ribcage caving inwards, crushing organs and causing such unfathomable pain Weiss broke temporarily from her stupor to cry out, eyelids pulled taut as her teeth ground together.

 _...did... did I ever leave the dollhouse...? Even for a little while...? Did I ever see... outside...?_

Her heart stopped beating, her body having nothing more to give.

 _...I'm sorry, Winter... could you ever forgive me?_

 ** _A Schnee does not ask for forgiveness._** A voice rang out in her mind that was decidedly not her own.

If Weiss still had control over her body, she would've cried out in surprise.

 _W... Winter? Is that... you? Really you? Where... are you?_

 ** _A Schnee does not lay in the snow and let themselves die._**

 _...Winter..._

 _ **A Schnee stands, and allows our Blueblood to defend against the frozen storm! A Schnee stands, and sculpts their mask so that their enemies may never see them weak!**_

 _(Mirror, Mirror, tell me something)_

Weiss remembered. The agony of having an entire half of her body burnt off. The crippling guilt of murdering her best friend in misguided rage. The grieving daughter that she murdered through monstrous methods. She remembered it all, moments where she came so close to one form of death or another. She remembered the feeling of fatalistic acceptance, of wanting to merely lay down and die - her mind too weary, her body too broken. The girl who'd had far more than enough. And yet... she survived. The half she lost was replaced. The guilt was more fuel to her fire. The daughter was proof of Weiss' potential in a category she was still too afraid to explore - to manipulate her semblance. Weiss did not necessarily win, but she did not lose, either. She... survived. Enough to kill others, to make them give up, a hundred times over. Where others would have faltered, Weiss had pushed on.

She watched the memories flitter by in almost a haze of information, all the associated emotions flowing through her simultaneously, yet not at all. Another of humanity's most hopeful, finding themselves in a moment which truly tested them - whether, when the option was given to them, if they could truly give it all up. Kalt Schnee was dead (or was he in a coma? Weiss couldn't remember), and the company could survive on its own. Everyone she cared about was dead. What was the point?

She remembered. The child who sat upon the frozen throne, begging for death, claws poised to carve out her throat. A scene not entirely too dissimilar to this one. _What did I say?_ The darkness would not answer, only an ethereal haze accompanying her to her grave. The light was fading, Weiss' soul along with it.

 _What did I say?_ A smiling face. A warm laugh. A deep embrace...

Warm. Warm. Warm. The epiphany hung on the edge of Weiss' tongue. What was... warm? Had she ever felt it, made of plastic as she was? Could a doll... feel?

Had Weiss ever felt anything at all?

...

("I love you, Weiss.")

 **A spark. As Weiss' body died, her mind fluctuated once more - memories flowing like blood from a wound.**

("How is _that_ anyway to-")

("You trust me, don't you?")

("I love you, Weiss.")

...

...dimly, Weiss remembered a voice. It was... warm. Loving. She'd felt that before, hadn't she? Yes, she had. But not since-

("Weiss, you dolt! You left the sweets in the hiding spot for _weeks_!")

("Weiss! You dolt! What'd I say about sneaking outside in a blizzard?")

("Sh... sh... it's okay. I'm here. I'll never let you go. Okay? I'm never leaving you. Promise...")

Except she'd broken that promise. How had Weiss forgotten? But... who had broken the promise? Who had made her feel... warm? Who had soothed her, who had cared? Who was the smiling face? Who was the one laughing like the chirping of spring birds?

("I love you, Weiss.")

Who had loved her, when no one else had?

("...Mom would have been proud.")

A deep, burning sorrow poured through Weiss' body. She knew that face. She knew that smile.

And so from the lips of the child sitting atop the frozen throne begging for death, came -

 _"For winter."_

Weiss **remembered _._** _S_ he'd vowed. To never let Winter's sacrifice be in vain. That of all the things she could possibly do, the most unacceptable was to simply let herself die.

 _...I can't die. Not like this._ All attempts to move failed, something very important obviously broken in the attack. _I refuse... I refuse! No! NO! I can't die like this! I refuse to invalidate Winter's sacrifice!_

( _Who's the loneliest of all?)_

Weiss' body remained immobile in the snow, torn open like a wild animal. The darkness surrounded her.

 _Move! Move! Move, you useless heap of flesh and metal! I **order you to MOVE-**_

Her finger twitched. Well, that was a start. And so Weiss commanded of the darkness surrounding her, flowing through her -

 ** _I am Weiss Schnee, heiress to the Schnee Dust Corporation and business Empire! I have slaughtered the innocent, and the guilty, to impose my rule! You will move, you useless sack of flesh, for no other reason than because I DEMAND IT!_**

It answered - Weiss' aura burst out in a brilliant white explosion, settling in an encompassing haze that shined like silver, red flickering at its edges. The sudden enormous quantity of aura was too much for her shattered body to handle at first, but Weiss persevered, and _commanded_ her aura - and something else - to work, to heal her wounds. And sure enough, it served its master faithfully, mending bone, pouring blood, inflating organs and knitting flesh. She was by no means healed when it ebbed away, her aura (?) utterly drained in less than a minute, but it was enough that the Schnee heiress could stand on two legs, and that was plenty.

"I..." Weiss croaked, paused momentarily, then continued in a regal tone. "Am Weiss Schnee! This world belongs to me! It is my birthright!" The monster, who'd simply sat back and watched it all transpire, cocked its head. Myrtenaster was levied straight for its skull. "Winter died to give me this chance, to fulfil my _duty_ and crush the White Fang, _and you will not stop me, so help me Oum._ You will _cease_ appearing before me and tormenting me, in any way, shape or form you take. If you don't... then I will richly, deeply enjoy separating your head from your body, _**Grimspawn**_."

The creature was silent for only a moment before it was laughing, differently than before. " **The blood speaks to you. It makes you strong.** " Though it was her body, twisted and malformed as it was, the voice it emitted was neither hers nor Winter's. " **You arise stronger than before. More sure of your righteousness. The Whispers laid the thought of this place in your mind for you to discover, and so you ventured here. The Whispers may destroy you in time, but you endure. You are... worthy, of the second rite.** "

It gestured to the red snow, a pool of Weiss' own blood. Despite the fact that it was only soaked snow, it seemed to ripple and flow like water.

" **Bathe in the blood of the Lamb, the sacrifice. Drink deeply of its weakness so that you may purge your own.** "

Weiss stared.

"...Are you insane? What makes you think-"

" **Then why are you already standing in it?** "

"What? No, I'm standing right-" Weiss looked down. Her eyes widened only a fraction of a second before she fell in, as though the world had ripped out from under her. The pool was far, far deeper than she'd imagined, her mind struggling to understand the impossibility of it as she struggled not to drown with her cybernetic augments and its mysterious current that went straight down. In her weakened state she could do little besides grasp futilely at the snow, her grip never catching as it pulled and pulled. Finally the snow gave, and Weiss screamed and gargled as she sank deeply into the red depths of the suctioning blood.

The creature watched on with red eyes, patient and still. There were many long minutes of bubbles floating to the surface, steadily decreasing in number until only a few came, then none at all. A time as long at it had taken for the bubbles to stop passed after the surface lay still, and the creature sighed, shaking its head. " **Pity. I had hoped my newest Acolyte would be stronger than this. I saw so much of myself-** "

Something metallic and dyed red emerged slowly from the pool, grasping the snow in a vice grip. Myrtenaster quickly jutted out and impaled the ground, also covered in blood. Finally, a girl with bright crimson hair emerged from the pool of blood, hauling herself over the ledge, skin and clothes drenched in red.

Weiss Schnee, panting and heaving, barely conscious, crawled out onto the snow, glared one last time at her red-eyed imitation then collapsed. In that moment, with her hair the colour of blood, the monster saw someone else entirely, and smiled. It continued to smile even as the blood flowed away, absorbed into Weiss' skin, rendering her spotless and in tones of white and black once more. The scar on her human eye pulsed once, twice, then lay dormant.

" **...No.** " The creature decided. " **I will not fix what makes you different. You are not Lilith. You never will be.** " The creature laughed mirthlessly. " **But you will fulfil her duty regardless. Fate, some would say... I prefer 'Bad. Luck'.** " It spat out, grimacing momentarily.

The creature walked over, skin shifting like water, revealing its true form. Few mortals had gazed upon the God's mortal form, let alone been in the presence of it, but Weiss was not inclined to wake for some time. The monster chuckled once again, deep yet feminine - the naturally unique, mature voice of a ruler.

" **Still, I require more Acolytes... many, many more...** " That said, the ancient Monarch lazily raised a hand directly above Weiss' body, glowing red. It spoke in a foul tongue not meant for Human ears, the glow brightening until it flashed and Weiss was gone, reappearing some distance away in her room, in bed.

" **The End nears.** "

The God flexed its hand, hummed thoughtfully, then disappeared in another brilliant red flash.

* * *

 _*_ _YES THIS IS A STAR WARS REFERENCE SHUT UP_

 _You know there is kind of a deeply meaningful element to Weiss simultaneously being the Lamb and (accidentally) the Witch's Acolyte. Because that is the Witch by the way. Any and all similarities to any existing RWBY characters are entirely purposeful, so, yeah..._

 ** _REVIEW, BECAUSE THERE IS NOTHING MORE BADASS THAN TREATING A WOMAN WITH RESPECT OR LEAVING A REVIEW!_**

 ** _REVIEW PLEASE! *SICK ASS GUITAR SOLO*_**


	6. The Witch

_Recommended listening: S.O.S by Indila_

 **RWBY Backstories:**

 _Porcelain, V: (5 of 5)_

 _The Witch_

 _Greetings ladies and gentlemen of the RWBY fanfiction community!_

 _Final chapter for Porcelain. Man, disappointed by the lack of reviews for this story. Thought edgy = good, but apparently I'm mistaken. Ah well._

 ** _(Honestly, 7 reviews? It's alright. I was just hoping this would receive about the same (if not more) reviews as 'Hero', but eh. People will review when they wanna review)_**

 _God damn it, another chapter I've written before chapter 2. I'm so bad at this._

 _Anyway. In This Chapter, we have Weiss, some hints at the future of the Creeping Thorns storyline, more Weiss, then an ominous ending._

 _Enjoy._

* * *

That night, Weiss dreamt of her mother.

In one moment Weiss was drowning in blood, desperate to escape, then the next she was in Springtime Southern Atlas, the only place it did not snow for all four seasons in this godforsaken country. All around her laid an endless meadow, open and free, with soft, rolling grass and fluorescent flowers. The sun shined like a golden medal, beset by the cloudless blue sky. An almost storybook interpretation of peace and tranquility, freedom and happiness. It was something Weiss almost lost herself in the wonder of. Because very little would give her reason to not simply close her eyes and enjoy the soft noise of a living meadow, instead of the screams or the shouting or the vague sizzle of burning flesh...

Except, perhaps, for her mother.

A ways away, wearing her white dress of endless frills and wide sleeves and a high collar. The character of a Monarch, regal and beautiful, yet humbled by the eternal look of pure maternal love. Her long, long snow-white hair flowed with the breeze, swaying gently. But that was all Weiss saw. Her mother was looking away, into the distance, silent and unmoving.

"M-mom." She breathed, feeling the word, letting it roll off her tongue after it went unused for so long. It'd been six years since she'd been taken from her, in blood and violence she was too young to comprehend, and now Winter was gone too, and she was the one administering the blood and the violence...

The thundering blow of despair racking her chest caused Weiss to shut her eyes, trying to outlast it. She cried out for her mother once more, and seemingly without her own volition began moving forward. She thought of all the things she wanted to say, what she'd never had a chance to, from a simple confession of love to a humble apology. She wanted to see her mother's face. She wanted to feel the warmth of her touch, the soft whispers in her hair. She wanted to _see_ her mother's face. She wanted to hear stories of valiant Knights saving princesses just like her from their fate. She wanted to see her _mother's face_. She wanted to hold the hands of the two most important people in her life again.

She wanted to see her mother's face. Just one more time.

And because of this, she walked right behind her and put a hand on her shoulder, her heart in her throat.

The monarch slowly turned.

* * *

 _She hides, her mother's corpse her only shelter from the world of whispers and black and red. Blood endlessly flowed over her shivering, trembling frame, pooling around her. Soaked in her mother's blood; so very cold and alone, and so very, very afraid..._

* * *

Weiss woke up screaming.

In a fluid motion born from month's of practice, she tore open her nightstand and shoved entire handfuls of pills down her throat. Then she kept taking them, more and more, far more than her prescription would've advised. Desperate to chase away the images haunting her from that nightmare, and at this point, uncaring about the means.

It only took a minute for the initial dosage to diffuse and turn Weiss' body utterly numb, the minute of screaming voices and torn faces still being one Weiss would never forget. However, the blissful numb was short-lived as the excess dosages quickly intensified the numb until Weiss' very tongue felt like a fleshy weight in her mouth, her skin like wet paper. Then she was convulsing, frothing foam pouring from her mouth as she lost all muscle control. And through it all, as the extraordinarily lethal dose granted Weiss' wish in the worst way possible, she felt nothing. Like her soul had already detached from her body, she watched herself die, an onlooker of her own demise.

 _Is this what it all comes down to?_ She wondered without a voice. _I survive assassins, rebels, cybernetics... to die from a handful of pills?_

She looked back at her door, and saw a shadow of something unmoving on the other side.

 _They're watching me._ She realized. _They're letting me die._ And it wasn't like she could signal the robotic guards for assistance in her current state. _Surrounded by those who could've helped, but chose not to... a fitting end for a monster._ She gave a breathless sigh. _Is this karma, for what I have done? All those I killed? Do I just... die?_

 ** _That is your choice._**

She recognized that voice. And whether it was Winter herself or the monster imitating her once more, Weiss didn't care.

 _Please_. She said in the broken voice of a child one breath away from shattering completely. _Not now. Just... don't._ She watched with an utterly blank expression, perhaps because that was all she could muster, as the corpse finally stopped convulsing. It drooled, eyes lifeless, breath slowing.

She'd already had her breaking point, when it took everything she had to keep going. And because the world was fair like that, she was being tested again so soon, when clearly Weiss had nothing left to give. The doll, shattered again and again, until it was not a doll anymore, but plastic dust. To be swept away with the breeze...

( _Can a heart be turned to stone?_ )

Only a miracle would restore Weiss' will to live now.

 _ **Then they will have all died in vain.**_

 _Life is unfair like that._ She growled.

 _ **And your vengeance?**_

 _What would more violence do? This world is just... an endless cycle of hate, and blood, and violence. Why even bother?_

 ** _You promised._**

And how much had that ever amounted to? A disappointed mother. A dead sister. Now a dying monster.

 _...Why doesn't anyone ever understand? They were right. I'm just a failure._

 ** _Perhaps. But you are also my sister._**

And so Winter Schnee, from beyond the grave, appeared in a flash of white before her young sister and swept her up in a deep hug.

 **"And I know my sister is much, much more than what anyone thinks of her."** Weiss couldn't speak, her chest and body seized in utter shock. Her arms, held stiffly at her sides, slowly worked their way up Winter's back. Warm.

Warm.

As though the touch had been a switch, Weiss hugged her elder sister back for all she was worth and cried.

 _It's... it's really you..._

She mumbled endless apologies into the fabric of Winter's clothes, wrapped up in such a familiar warmth Weiss' heart ached like it'd been stabbed. Her sister soothed her with shushing words she hadn't heard since she was so very, very young. She tenderly stroked along Weiss' back, and after so long the sensation of touch didn't repulse her. Merely remind her of better times.

 _Oh Dust, Winter I... I... missed you..._

 **"I did too, Weiss. I missed you more than I could ever stand. I... I can't even begin to apologize for the suffering I've caused you, the choices you had to make."**

Weiss blood ran cold, and she slowly backed out of the tender embrace.

 _You... saw? What I've done_? Shame like nothing else welled up in Weiss' stomach. So very much shame, Weiss' couldn't meet Winter's eyes.

 **"I did.** **"** Winter said in a mournful tone. Weiss shame grew, her eyes now dripping tears of sorrow and grief. **"But let this be known. I... understand, that you did what you had to do. Each and every choice was one where the outcomes otherwise would've been worse, and perhaps you could've done something differently to reach the same end more peacefully, more virtuously - but that is in the past now. Dwelling on it will only drive you mad. More than it already has, anyway."**

Weiss couldn't believe it. _So you don't... hate me for it? For... for what I've done?_

 **"Well, someone has to love the cold, mean Ice Princess unconditionally."** Winter teased with a smile. **"Who better than the big, scary Ice Queen?"**

Weiss incredulity lasted only a moment longer before she started laughing, tears spilling from her eyes. Dust, how long had it been since she'd laughed? Or since she'd done her fairy tale shtick?

She fell back into the Ice Princess mentality in mere moments, harrumphing as she crossed her arms and glared disdainfully at Winter. _I'll have you know, in_ my _Kingdom, all my subjects adore me!_

 **"You probably had to bribe them with tax cuts."** Weiss gasped as Winter smirked. Oh, how dare she!

 _Who cares what the peasants want? I''ll tax their - their sheep! See how they enjoy their dissent now!_

 **"Oh yes, their sheep. Whatever would they do without their sheep? Their rebellion shall crumble in days."** Practically choking on sarcasm.

 _And the cows!_

 **"And the cows."** As though it was the most obvious conclusion to make.

 _You're mocking me, aren't you?_

 **"Oh I couldn't possibly, My Lady. I'm certain with the castle's sudden excess of livestock you'll have a magnificent rule."**

 _Least I'll rule somewhere warm._

 **"All the better for the sheep then. And the cows."**

Weiss' face twisted with dozens of half-cocked responses, yet didn't utter a single one. Finally, she settled on the Pout of a Monarch, cheeks puffed and eyes glaring murder. A low growl that promised Winter's imminent rue sounded out, Weiss grumbling under her own breath.

Then, of course, the mirth dimmed from Winter's eyes, smile slackening into her ever cool countenance.

 **"...I won't be here for much longer. A minute, maybe."**

Weiss' good mood vanished instantly. It was only now she noticed that this entire conversation had occurred with her own dead body still in the room.

 _Won't... can't I come with you? Please... I - I don't know if I can take it anymore..._

Winter embraced her sister once again.

 **"...You're old and experienced enough to know that there is no knight coming to save you. It's a lie we tell ourselves so that the impossibly seldom time it does happen, it proves to us all that we were right for harboring foolish hope."** Winter explained, Weiss hanging onto every word. **"So I will give you the same advice mother gave to me."** Winter looked her sister straight in the eye. **"'There are no heroes save the ones we aspire to be. We make our fate. We do not choose how the world may try and destroy us, but we can certainly choose to not fall for its parlor tricks.'"** Her body was already fading into white dust, vanishing as it floated away.

Winter kissed her sister's forehead goodbye, legs and lower torso already gone.

 **" _You_ are the Knight, Weiss. It is up to you to save yourself, to do what must be done. Carry with you the wrath of many Schnee departed, the fury of those who's descendants blood has been spilled." **She closed her eyes, speaking a phrase Weiss' hadn't heard in a long time. **"'The Frost is not our foe, nor our ally. Through acceptance, we may act as the fire it cannot be, and smite those who would defy the cycle. Ageless in time and fathomless in depth, the Frost is born from your soul - and with its guidance, thou shalt never come to harm.'"**

 _...That's your aura release phrase. But why are you-?_

Winter shushed Weiss with a hand, that vanished a moment later. Then, with only her head remaining, breathed pure frost from her 'lungs' and chilled Weiss to the bone.

 **"This is all I can do for you in this state. Silberdistel is yours to command. I leave it to you to end the White Fang, and save humanity from itself."**

She smiled, the last part of herself to vanish. Her voice became the wind.

 **"After all, besides my little sister, I don't think there is anyone who could..."**

Weiss clutched her chest, the whispered words stirring something deep in her soul. The tears would not end, but it was not sorrow having its way. It was the same fiery determination Winter herself had once held, sparkling drops of shed weakness, of certainty. Weiss cast off her doubt like snow in the dawning of Spring, the last traces of regret fading away along with Winter.

 **"Farewell,"** the wind breathed into Weiss' ear, and a sensation of warmth past through her whole body. One last embrace.

 _Goodbye, Winter._ This time, on proper terms. Extremely few would ever have a chance like this. And if only to see her sister one last time, Weiss was grateful. Duty burned bright and hard in her heart, her promise to live now in full force - a miracle had occurred. Her resolve had never been so steadfast, the weight of invisible mountains off her shoulders. Finally, finally, Weiss Schnee would face her fears with dry eyes, an unburdened soul. Certain she was doing the right thing.

There was just one problem.

She stared at her dead body.

 _...Right. Forgot about that little... slight... major detail..._ Weiss racked her brain for the slightest hint of a solution, turning up unfortunately very little. _How do I... uh... go back?_ Though, being surrounded by foam and soiled sheets hardly made returning to her own body an appealing notion. She wrinkled her nose. _Is that smell what I think it is? Ew... you know, perhaps the afterlife isn't so-_

Naturally, _naturally_ , it was at that exact moment as Weiss pondered the actualities of undeath that she abruptly sat up in her bed and _breathed_ like she hadn't in years. Her cybernetic eye was feeding an unending scrolling wall of information directly into her brain, dozens and dozens of rapid commands and computer scripts she hadn't a hope to understand. After several moments however the information stopped, ending on a single page of spaced out text.

 ** _COMMAND REPORT:_**

 ** _& VITALS: NULL&CRITICAL ORGAN FAILURE DETECTED&DIRECTIVE R-41 INITIATED&_**

 ** _w72i8n34t3e7r_**

 ** _& DAMAGE MITIGATION ROUTINES INITIATED&BRAIN PRESERVATION SEQUENCE INITIATED&BRAIN DAMAGE: MINIMAL, LOW PRIORITY&MAJOR ORGAN FAILURE: CIRITCAL, HIGH PRIORITY&RESERVE NANITES DISPATCHED&CPU OVERLOCKING INITIATED (200%)&CPU BOTTLENECK DETECTED, REDIRECTING&OPERATIONAL PROCESSOR POWER LIMIT REACHED EXCESS 112.6%: SYSTEMS MAIN AND BACKUP CRITICAL&_**

 ** _& ERRORERRORERROR&COMMAND CATALOGUE OF 19:41:36-19:42:56 UNAVAILABE&RESUMING FROM NEXT ENTRY&_**

 ** _& BASELINE ORGAN OPERATION: RESTORED (HEART RATE, BLOODFLOW, OXYGEN INTAKE AND EXPULSION)&BRAIN DAMAGE MITIGATED TO PRE-INCIDENT LEVELS&UNKNOWN DETECTED&ERRORERRORERRORERROR&ANOMALY VANISHED, SYSTEMS RESUMING DIAGNOSTIC&_**

 ** _& ORGAN FUNCTIONS RESTORED, MEDICAL ATTENTION ADVISED&CPU OVERLOCK ENDED, SYSTEMS RESUMING NORMAL FUNCTION&_**

 ** _& DIRECTIVE "SAVE HER" COMPLETED&_**

 ** _& A8778DA09S7D6&_**

 ** _..._**

Weiss blinked, and the command report was gone before she even opened her eye. If she was reading it right, it seemed that once again, the cybernetics were the only reason she was alive. Even so, it was nothing short of a miracle she'd lived, the cybernetics having apparently been pushed beyond their limits to save her life. She'd almost rendered Winter's sacrifice in vain with her selfish, careless actions, a thought that burned terribly.

 _This will not happen again,_ she decided with unwavering conviction. Her suffering was secondary to the importance of her task, her duty. She would _destroy_ the White Fang - Dust damn the consequences and those unfortunate enough to get in her way. If the world had to be saved in fire, then let it be so. She'd more than happily stoke the flames.

"For Winter," she breathed out, and a hideous coughing fit ravaged her body, excess blood and froth spilling from her mouth. Ah, yes. 'Medical attention advised' probably did not mean 'best left ignored'.

Right... right after she changes the sheets...

For perhaps the first time in months, Weiss blushed in embarrassment.

They were starting to _smell_.

* * *

An entire world away, in the place light goes to die, so dark a mere spark would be as a dying sun, a trapped soul languishes.

 _I did what you asked._ She says from her prison, a spherical construction of glass blackened by dark rituals. Her captor, seated on a throne of blood and bone and strength, laughs languidly.

" **That you did, dear Winter. Your sister will live another day, all thanks to your... rousing speech.** " She mocks in a voice incapable of empathy. She chuckles darkly. " **I was fortunate to bind you when I did. A moment later, and you would've been... outside my area of influence.** "

Winter's soul glares from her dark prison, dank with the moisture and smell of old blood. _My sister is not some object. She will realise your intent, then-_

" **Then _what?_ Fail in her duty to avenge you? No, you and I know her far too well for that. She'd rather die. You were the one who convinced her, after all.**"

 _Because you would not let me speak with her otherwise._ Winter defended venomously, the burden of her guilt visibly weighing on her shoulders. Well, as visible as an intangible being bound by black magic to a physical object could be anyway.

" **It is the same either way. Weiss is as motivated as a mortal may be, by guilt and duty simultaneously. I highly doubt she will defy me now. In fact, our interests may be one and the same.** " From the shadows, a God grins with vicious delight. " **A new world, free of chaos and emotion. No suffering, no pain-** "

 _No love, no compassion._ Winter counters. _It's almost comical how textbook your approach to villainy is. Manipulating people, global domination... it's juvenile. Predictable. What makes you think-_

The God raises a hand, and from the sphere came the sudden sound of agonized screaming. The screaming continued, eons and eons passing in moments as was the God's will. Then the God lowers her hand, and the sphere fell silent.

" **What makes me think... what, _mortal_? That I won't simply be stopped by your regular band of 'heroes?'** " Her eyes hardened. " **I've tried that. Beating the darkest parts of humanity. It took the death of all my friends and the betrayal of the one I loved for me to realize life is suffering - that what we fought for? Our life's work? _Meaningless._ It is a kindness to spare Humanity from themselves. A _kindness_. Victory shall come to me not because I am a God, though that helps with the means - no. I will win for a reason far simpler, far more... base.** " She snarls. " **Because** **Humans are _predictable,_ and so easily manipulated. They will live because I will it, and then they will die, because I _demand_ it.**"

The bound soul remains silent for a time, long enough that the God thinks it will not respond, then it quietly whispers -

 _You're a monster. An honest to goodness monster. Without care, without remorse._

" **And thanks to you, your sister shall eventually become one too. If she isn't already.** "

 _You're wrong._ Winter responds immediately, causing the God to pause.

" **Oh? How so?** "

 _Because if you knew my sister as well as you claim to, you will know her will is even stronger than my own. Break me, destroy me, render me to less than nothing - I do not care what befalls me. But my sister..._

 _Weiss Schnee will prove you wrong. She'll prove everyone wrong. Because my sister is much, much more than what anyone thinks of her, you old, villainous, corrupt, Gimmspawned_ **bitch _._**

The God becomes silent. Contemplatively silent. Winter does not continue, instead choosing to unleash the guilt-ridden tears she'd battled against into the far corner of her cell. She remains sobbing from the reality of what she'd done, compounded by her imprisonment and constant torture, letting the broken sound fill the dark God's chamber in absence of anything else.

The dark God was, after all, lost in thought. Of the man she'd loved, the same conviction he'd once bared - that all of them had bared. She stares at her hands, sees the inhuman paleness of them, and reminds herself for the four thousandth, three hundredth and fifteenth time that her choices were necessary. Necessary. They did not die in vain. It was up to her to finish their fight, to achieve what they'd always wanted.

If they could see her now... she wondered... what would they think?

The dark God's chamber was filled with only the sound of tears for a while longer.

* * *

 _ **Further down the arduous road of Weiss' life, there is an intersection that twists the fate of the world. It is not part of the God's plan, and thus, they are afraid of it. They are not used to being defied. it is the sign of cHange or prhps th nd of th wrl-**_

Like any storybook, their conflict was inevitable - their encounter, fated.

Love and Duty stared each other down, appraising their new forms, their latest embodiments. Time and again they found themselves here - not a place, but a situation. Standing at distance length, awaiting the first ring of drawn metal. The world burned around them, as it always did, regardless of whether the fires were visible.

For Her, for Him, for God, for Country, to simple whimsical desire - their reasons were endless, yet so pointless now. It was time again to see who would measure greater, whose reasoning more righteous, whose desire more driving, in the eternal cycle of conflict Humanity has been forever drawn into.

Love took the form of a young girl in red, with the silver eyes of a predator. Duty glared down from a throne of bodies, light-blue eye tinged with madness.

All of their respective decisions, their experiences, their sacrifices built up to this. It was fated, after all. Or, as one God thought of it, 'Bad. Luck'. Weiss Schnee would either destroy Ruby Rose, or Ruby Rose would destroy Weiss Schnee. In the space of a moment, the plan's malleable nature comes into play once more, shifting and rewriting itself, almost stretched to capacity. Suddenly the God's plans went along unhindered, as they always had. The unadulterated script to a play for which the entire world performed.

Ruby spoke heartfelt words of anguish, espousing about the loved one the tyrannical Queen murdered, yet how she was hoping to avoid further violence. The eternal prisoner of the Dollhouse listened with a contemptuous expression, motivations and grief meaning very little in the face of her Duty. Instead she recalled her first encounter with the young monster, when she'd gnawed on Winter's bust. Oh, how times had changed.

Weiss' face hardened.

"And?" She said venomously after Ruby finished. Ruby was visibly taken aback, expressing shock born from utter naivety. Weiss didn't believe it for a second, remembering vividly what lurked beneath.

"But... why?"

The Queen scowled. Always with the 'why'.

"Because I feel like it. Because the world is unfair. Because I _hate you_." Weiss growled. "Do any of those answers satisfy you, or will you not rest until you die a slow painful death with a pointless truth?"

"You're afraid. You can't imagine a world where you don't do what you're... currently doing." Ruby made a visible effort to avoid confusing herself. "That's okay. I know you can do it. Everyone can, as long as someone believes in them."

The tyrant laughed in a way that was only describable as 'ugly'. "And you have faith in me? In a killer?"

Ruby smiled humbly. "'A person can do anything, as long as someone believes in them - even if it is only themselves'. My mother told me that, once." She slowly extended a hand. "And maybe you don't see it, but I do. The spark of good beneath all the bad. I... I _believe_ you, Weiss. I think you just need to believe in yourself."

By the time Ruby had finished her diatribe, Weiss Schnee's hands had gripped the sides of her thrones hard enough to shatter it. Rage like flowing fire poured through her, the same kind of burning anger she'd felt years ago, upon their first encounter. Then, she hadn't known why she hated the little girl in red so much.

Now, she knew.

Ruby Rose was so utterly, painfully, obnoxiously _naïve_.

"You want to believe in people's good nature? To try and see the supposed good in me?" Weiss growled out, slowly rising from her throne, grasping Myrtenaster. A second rapier hung from her side, still sheathed. "Then let me tell you this. I am not going to kill you because of some greater good, nor because it will be balanced out when everything is summed up. There is no 'reason' for this, save perhaps your intereference with my plans. No, Ruby Rose.

"I am going to kill you simply _because I can._ "

The burning home suddenly burst into frost, every wall and floor frozen solid and affixed with sharp, jagged protrusions of ice. The temperature had lowered far below freezing, and if Ruby was an ordinary human, she'd have fallen into shock from the abrupt temperature change and died instantly.

"This is no God! There is no justice! No hope! This is a world where the only things that exists are what we take for ourselves!" Red snowflakes rained from the frozen ceiling. One of them lethargically touched Ruby's arm, and a wide gash split her arm open like the cut of a blade. She made sure to avoid them after that. "In this world, the weak exist only to be used! To survive, you must either submit, or become stronger! Become the oppressor! Become part of the ruling class! Pathetic, naïve creatures like you will not survive in this world!" Weiss drew Myrtenaster higher, levying it directly at Ruby. The red snowflakes suddenly stopped falling, locked in place yet still twirling, hundreds and hundreds of them. "Consider death a kindness!"

Black-red liquid-flesh flowed from Ruby's body, forming a swirling pool before her. She reached in, grasping a black handle, then pulled. And pulled. And pulled. And kept pulling, drawing a weapon much larger than herself from the dark pool. It's long handle was wrapped in twisting thorns, spiraling around and around - it's head dominated by a large, curving, wicked blade. Red-black flesh covered the blade, yet exposed it's gleaming black edge, like half the maw of a vicious beast. The 13 year-old girl hefted the weapon easily, sprawling it across her diminutive shoulders.

"You know, why is it that people who do bad things always say a lot?" Ruby wondered idly. Weiss did not deign that with a response.

With a furious shout the Schnee family head forced all the blood-red snowflakes into motion at once, spinning impossibly fast like hacksaws, yearning for the taste of blood. So many descended on Ruby at once, the room vanished beneath a hail of red.

(MAYBE IT'S RED LIKE ROSES!? MAYBE IT'S THE POOOL OF BLOOOD!)

Then Ruby-

* * *

 _..._

 _..._

 _...what? you thought you could see something that's like, 20 chapters in to the main story, Creeping Thorns? Nope. I'm cliffhanger-ing you guys. Why? Because I've gotten 1 review as of the time of writing this and if only to see your delicious salty tears manifested into words I want consumer feedback! Please and thank you._

 _You know there's a certain art to the irony in this. You know, big bad says humans are predictable, turns out she's just the original Weiss, blah blah blah. I wonder if people realize this stuff or they just don't care. Good story has to have the aesthetics, you know? Small details. I'm trying, at least._

 ** _Review, and maybe, maybe I post an epilogue that finishes the confrontation. Maybe. If it's a lot of reviews. Just don't spam it or something, okay? Thanks._**


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